Staff working papers

• A Bitcoin Standard: Lessons from the Gold Standard

  Staff Working Paper 2016-14 Warren E. Weber

  This paper imagines a world in which countries are on the Bitcoin standard, a monetary system in which all media of exchange are Bitcoin or are backed by it. The paper explores the similarities and differences between the Bitcoin standard and the gold standard and describes the media of exchange that would exist under the Bitcoin standard.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech, Exchange rates, Financial services, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): E, E4, E41, E42, E5, E58

• Government Corruption and Foreign Direct Investment Under the Threat of Expropriation

  Staff Working Paper 2016-13 Christopher Hajzler, Jonathan Rosborough

  Foreign investment is often constrained by two forms of political risk: expropriation and corruption. We examine the role of government corruption in foreign direct investment (FDI) when contracts are not fully transparent and investors face the threat of expropriation.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Development economics, Economic models, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F2, F21, F23, F3, F34

• Capital Structure, Pay Structure and Job Termination

  Staff Working Paper 2016-12 Jason Allen, James R. Thompson

  We develop a model to analyze the link between financial leverage, worker pay structure and the risk of job termination. Contrary to the conventional view, we show that even in the absence of any agency problem among workers, variable pay can be optimal despite workers being risk averse and firms risk neutral.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Labour markets JEL Code(s): G, G2, G24, J, J3, J33

• Dating Systemic Financial Stress Episodes in the EU Countries

  Staff Working Paper 2016-11 Benjamin Klaus, Tuomas Peltonen, Thibaut Duprey

  This paper introduces a new methodology to date systemic financial stress events in a transparent, objective and reproducible way. The financial cycle is captured by a monthly country-specific financial stress index.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Central bank research, Econometric and statistical methods, Economic models, Financial markets, Financial stability, Financial system regulation and policies, Monetary and financial indicators JEL Code(s): C, C5, C54, G, G0, G01, G1, G15

• Measuring Systemic Risk Across Financial Market Infrastructures

  Staff Working Paper 2016-10 Fuchun Li, Héctor Pérez Saiz

  We measure systemic risk in the network of financial market infrastructures (FMIs) as the probability that two or more FMIs have a large credit risk exposure to the same FMI participant.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability, Payment clearing and settlement systems JEL Code(s): C, C5, C58, G, G2, G21, G23

• The Dynamics of Capital Flow Episodes

  Staff Working Paper 2016-9 Christian Friedrich, Pierre Guérin

  This paper proposes a novel methodology for identifying episodes of strong capital flows based on a regime-switching model. In comparison with the existing literature, a key advantage of our methodology is to estimate capital flow regimes without the need for context- and sample-specific assumptions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International financial markets, International topics, Monetary policy and uncertainty JEL Code(s): F, F2, F21, F3, F32, G, G1, G11