Testing for the Diffusion Matrix in a Continuous-Time Markov Process Model with Applications to the Term Structure of Interest Rates Staff Working Paper 2015-17 Fuchun Li The author proposes a test for the parametric specification of each component in the diffusion matrix of a d-dimensional diffusion process. Overall, d (d-1)/2 test statistics are constructed for the off-diagonal components, while d test statistics are constructed for the main diagonal components. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods, Interest rates JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, C14, E, E1, E17, E4, E43, G, G1, G12, G2, G20
Exploring Differences in Household Debt Across Euro Area Countries and the United States Staff Working Paper 2015-16 Dimitris Christelis, Michael Ehrmann, Dimitris Georgarakos We use internationally comparable household-level data for ten euro area economies and the United States to investigate cross-country differences in debt holdings and the potential of debt overhang. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates, Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): D, D1, D12, E, E2, E21, G, G1, G11
Household Stockholding Behavior During the Great Financial Crisis Staff Working Paper 2015-15 Jie Zhou Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this paper studies household stock market participation and trading behavior in 2007–09, a period that saw a major stock market downswing. The stock market participation rate fell after the market crash. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G0, G01, G1, G11
Euro Area Government Bonds—Integration and Fragmentation During the Sovereign Debt Crisis Staff Working Paper 2015-13 Michael Ehrmann, Marcel Fratzscher The paper analyzes the integration of euro area sovereign bond markets during the European sovereign debt crisis. It tests for contagion (i.e., an intensification in the transmission of shocks across countries), fragmentation (a reduction in spillovers) and flight-to-quality patterns, exploiting the heteroskedasticity of intraday changes in bond yields for identification. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Financial markets, Interest rates, International financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E5, F, F3, G, G1, G15
Fourier Inversion Formulas for Multiple-Asset Option Pricing Staff Working Paper 2015-11 Bruno Feunou, Ernest Tafolong Plain vanilla options have a single underlying asset and a single condition on the payoff at the expiration date. For this class of options, a well-known result of Duffie, Pan and Singleton (2000) shows how to invert the characteristic function to obtain a closed-form formula for their prices. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G12
Motivations for Capital Controls and Their Effectiveness Staff Working Paper 2015-5 Radhika Pandey, Gurnain Pasricha, Ila Patnaik, Ajay Shah We assess the motivations for changing capital controls and their effectiveness in India, a country with extensive and long-standing controls. We focus on the controls on foreign borrowing that can, in principle, be motivated by macroprudential concerns. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F32, G, G1, G15, G18
High-Frequency Trading around Macroeconomic News Announcements: Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Market Staff Working Paper 2014-56 George Jiang, Ingrid Lo, Giorgio Valente This paper investigates high-frequency (HF) market and limit orders in the U.S. Treasury market around major macroeconomic news announcements. BrokerTec introduced i- Cross at the end of 2007 and we use this exogenous event as an instrument to analyze the impact of HF activities on liquidity and price efficiency. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial markets JEL Code(s): G, G1, G10, G12, G14
December 10, 2014 Exchange-Traded Funds: Evolution of Benefits, Vulnerabilities and Risks Financial System Review - December 2014 Ian Foucher, Kyle Gray Ian Foucher and Kyle Gray explain the different types of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which present both benefits and risks for investors. They discuss ways in which the risk characteristics of certain ETF products could have broader implications for the financial system, and describe the evolution of ETF market structure and regulation in different jurisdictions as authorities try to mitigate risks related to ETFs. Content Type(s): Publications, Financial System Review articles Topic(s): Financial markets, Financial stability, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): G, G1, G14, G18, G2, G20
Bootstrap Tests of Mean-Variance Efficiency with Multiple Portfolio Groupings Staff Working Paper 2014-51 Sermin Gungor, Richard Luger We propose double bootstrap methods to test the mean-variance efficiency hypothesis when multiple portfolio groupings of the test assets are considered jointly rather than individually. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Asset pricing, Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets JEL Code(s): C, C1, C12, C14, C15, G, G1, G12
The Effect of the Federal Reserve’s Tapering Announcements on Emerging Markets Staff Working Paper 2014-50 Vikram Rai, Lena Suchanek The Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing (QE) program has been accompanied by a flow of funds into emerging-market economies (EMEs) in search of higher returns. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): International financial markets, International topics, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): C, C3, C33, E, E5, E58, F, F3, F32, G, G1, G14