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on Central Banking |
| By: | Michael D. Bordo |
| Abstract: | Digitalization of Money is a crossroad in monetary history. Advances in technology has led to the development of new forms of money: virtual (crypto) currencies like bitcoin; stable coins like libra/diem; and central bank digital currencies (CBDC) like the Bahamian sand dollar. These innovations in money and finance have resonance to earlier shifts in monetary history: 1) The shift in the eighteenth and nineteenth century from commodity money (gold and silver coins) to convertible fiduciary money and inconvertible fiat money; 2) the shift in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from central bank notes to a central bank monopoly; 3) Then evolution since the seventeenth century of central banks and the tools of monetary policy. This paper analyzes the arguments for a CBDC through the lens of monetary history. The bottom line is that the history of transformations in monetary systems suggests that technical change in money is inevitably driven by the financial incentives of a market economy. Government has always had a key role in the provision of outside money, which is a public good. Government has also regulated inside money provided by the private sector. This held for fiduciary money and will likely hold for digital money. CBDC could make monetary policy more efficient, and it could transform the international monetary and payments systems. |
| JEL: | E42 E52 E58 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29171&r= |
| By: | Benetton, Matteo (Haas School of Business, University of California); Gavazza, Alessandro (London School of Economics); Surico, Paolo (London Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides novel evidence on lenders’ mortgage pricing and on how central bank operations affected it. Using the universe of mortgages originated in the UK, we show that lenders seek to segment the market by offering two-part tariffs composed of interest rates and origination fees, and that during recent periods of unconventional monetary policy, such as UK’s Funding for Lending Scheme, lenders decreased interest rates and increased origination fees. To understand lenders’ pricing strategies and their effects on market equilibrium, we develop and estimate a structural discrete-continuous model of mortgage demand and lender competition in which borrowers may have different sensitivities to rates and fees. We use the estimated model to decompose the effects of central bank unconventional monetary policy on mortgage pricing and lending, finding that central bank operations increased borrower surplus and lender profits. Moreover, although origination fees allow lender to price discriminate and capture surplus, banning fees would lower borrower surplus and aggregate welfare. |
| Keywords: | origination fees; mortgage demand; heterogeneity; structural estimation; unconventional monetary policy |
| JEL: | E52 G21 |
| Date: | 2021–08–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:0936&r= |
| By: | Martin Baumgaertner (THM Business School); Johannes Zahner (Philipps-Universitaet Marburg) |
| Abstract: | Dictionary approaches are at the forefront of current techniques for quantifying central bank communication. This paper proposes embeddings – a language model trained using machine learning techniques – to locate words and documents in a multidimensional vector space. To accomplish this, we gather a text corpus that is unparalleled in size and diversity in the central bank communication literature, as well as introduce a novel approach to text quantification from computational linguistics. Utilizing this novel text corpus of over 23,000 documents from over 130 central banks we are able to provide high quality text-representations –embeddings– for central banks. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of embeddings in this paper by several examples in the fields of monetary policy surprises, financial uncertainty, and gender bias. |
| Keywords: | Word Embedding, Neural Network, Central Bank Communication, Natural Language Processing, Transfer Learning |
| JEL: | C45 C53 E52 Z13 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:202130&r= |
| By: | Selva Bahar Baziki; Tanju Capacioglu |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of the introduction of and a subsequent easing in residential credit loan-to-value (LTV) ratio caps on bank lending and borrowers' loan usage with a unique and comprehensive bank-linked individual credit data set in a large emerging economy. We first show that following the introduction of an LTV cap, banks that were previously lending at rates above the limit have reduced residential lending, as targeted by the policy. We find that banks change their balance sheet composition as a response, replacing the reduction in residential lending with higher commercial loans and general-purpose loans issued to new residential borrowers. |
| Keywords: | Loan to value ratio, Credit risk, Housing loans, General-purpose loans, Credit spillover |
| JEL: | G21 G28 E51 E58 G20 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcb:wpaper:2123&r= |
| By: | Leslie Sheng Shen |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a "double adverse selection channel" of international transmission. It shows, theoretically and empirically, that financial systems with both global and local banks exhibit double adverse selection in credit allocation across firms. Global (local) banks have a comparative advantage in extracting information on global (local) risk, and this double information asymmetry creates a segmented credit market where each bank lends to the worst firms in terms of the unobserved risk factor. Given a bank funding (e.g., monetary policy) shock, double adverse selection affects firm financing at the extensive and price margins, generating spillover and amplification effects across countries. |
| Keywords: | Adverse selection; Global banking; Information asymmetry; International transmission; Monetary policy |
| JEL: | G21 F30 |
| Date: | 2021–08–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgif:1325&r= |
| By: | Eduardo Dávila; Ansgar Walther |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the optimal design of second-best corrective regulation, when some agents or activities cannot be perfectly regulated. We show that policy elasticities and Pigouvian wedges are sufficient statistics to characterize the marginal welfare impact of regulatory policies in a large class of environments. We show that the optimal second-best policy is determined by a subset of policy elasticities: leakage elasticities, and characterize the marginal value of relaxing regulatory constraints. We apply our results to scenarios with unregulated agents/activities and with uniform regulation across agents/activities. We illustrate our results in applications to shadow banking, scale-invariant regulation, asset substitution, and fire sales. |
| JEL: | D62 G18 G28 H21 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29160&r= |
| By: | Enisse Kharroubi |
| Abstract: | Using a model of strategic interactions between two countries, I investigate the gains to international coordination of financial regulation policies, and how these gains depend on global lending conditions. When global lending conditions are determined non-cooperatively, I show that coordinating regulatory policies leads to a Pareto improvement relative to the case of no cooperation. In the non-cooperative equilibrium, one region - the core - determines global lending conditions, leaving the other region - the periphery - in a sub-optimal situation. The periphery then tightens regulatory policy to reduce the cost of sub-optimal lending conditions. Yet, in doing so, it fails to internalise a cross-border externality: tightening regulatory policy in one region limits ex ante borrowing in the other region, which increases the cost of sub-optimal lending conditions for the periphery. The equilibrium with cooperative regulatory policies can then improve on this outcome as both regions take into account the cross-border externality and allow for larger ex ante borrowing, ending in a lower cost of suboptimal lending conditions for the periphery. |
| Keywords: | regulatory policy, global financial conditions, international coordination |
| JEL: | D53 D62 F38 F42 G18 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:962&r= |
| By: | Annette Vissing-Jorgensen |
| Abstract: | Treasury yields spiked during the initial phase of COVID. The 10-year yield increased by 64 bps from March 9 to 18, 2020, leading the Federal Reserve to purchase $1T of Treasuries in 2020Q1. Fed purchases were causal for reducing Treasury yields based on the timing of purchases (which increased on March 19), the timing of yield reversal and Fed purchases in the MBS market, and evidence against confounding factors. Treasury-QE worked more via purchases than announcements. The yield spike was driven by liquidity needs of mutual funds, foreign official agencies, and hedge funds that were unaffected by the March 15 Treasury-QE announcement. |
| JEL: | E5 G12 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29128&r= |
| By: | Buckmann, Marcus (Bank of England); Haldane, Andy (Bank of England); Hüser, Anne-Caroline (Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | Is human or artificial intelligence more conducive to a stable financial system? To answer this question, we compare human and artificial intelligence with respect to several facets of their decision-making behaviour. On that basis, we characterise possibilities and challenges in designing partnerships that combine the strengths of both minds and machines. Leveraging on those insights, we explain how the differences in human and artificial intelligence have driven the usage of new techniques in financial markets, regulation, supervision, and policy making and discuss their potential impact on financial stability. Finally, we describe how effective mind-machine partnerships might be able to reduce systemic risks. |
| Keywords: | Artificial intelligence; machine learning; financial stability; innovation; systemic risk |
| JEL: | C45 C55 C63 C81 |
| Date: | 2021–08–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:0937&r= |
| By: | Francis Breedon; Thórarinn G. Pétursson; Paolo Vitale |
| Abstract: | We analyse how capital controls affect FX microstructure, using as a case study the introduction and subsequent removal of controls in Iceland. We use a VAR of private order flow, Central Bank order flow and EURISK that allows for contemporaneous feedback effects to analyse the impact and information content of trades and find that controls have profound effects. When controls were introduced, volume plummeted, the information content of trading activity declined and became less responsive to macro news. While there was no recovery of trading volume after controls were abolished, the information content and responsiveness of trading activity increased sharply. |
| JEL: | C32 F31 F32 G14 G15 |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ice:wpaper:wp86&r= |
| By: | Ye Li; Simon Mayer |
| Abstract: | Stablecoins rise to meet the demand for safe assets in decentralized finance. Stablecoin issuers transform risky reserve assets into tokens of stable values, deploying a variety of tactics. To address the questions on the viability of stablecoins, regulations, and the initiatives led by large platforms, we develop a dynamic model of optimal stablecoin management and characterize an instability trap. The system is bimodal: stability can last for a long time, but once stablecoins break the buck following negative shocks, volatility persists. Debasement triggers a vicious cycle but is unavoidable as it allows efficient risk sharing between the issuer and stablecoin users. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9260&r= |
| By: | Luca Benati |
| Abstract: | Since the XIX century, technological progress has allowed commercial banks to create ever greater amounts of broad money and credit starting from a unit of monetary base. Crucially, however, at the very low frequencies the relative amounts of the two aggregates created out of a unit of base money have remained unchanged over time in each of the 42 countries I analyze. This finding questions the widespread notion that, since WWII, credit has become disconnected from broad money, and suggests that, except for their greater productivity at creating broad money and credit out of base money, today’s commercial banks are not fundamentally different from their XIX century’s counterparts. The implication is that only the ascent of shadow banks has introduced a disconnect between broad money and credit. |
| Keywords: | Money; credit; Lucas critique; financial crises. |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ube:dpvwib:dp2112&r= |
| By: | Yusuf Emre Akgunduz; Seyit Mumin Cilasun; H. Ozlem Dursun-de Neef; Yavuz Selim Hacihasanoglu; Ibrahim Yarba |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits the COVID-19 pandemic as a negative shock on firm revenues in affected industries and studies the transmission of this shock via banks. We use the ex-ante heterogeneity in the amount of loans issued to affected industries to measure the variation in banks' exposure to the negative shock. Using bank-firm level credit register data from Turkey, we show that banks transmitted the negative shock with a reduction in their loan supply not only to affected but also unaffected industries. The effect persists at the firm level, but is reduced for large firms and firms with existing relationships to state-owned banks. |
| Keywords: | Bank loan supply, Economic shocks propagation, COVID-19 pandemic, Bank lending channel, Firm borrowing channel |
| JEL: | G01 G21 G28 G32 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcb:wpaper:2124&r= |
| By: | Nizam, Ahmed Mehedi |
| Abstract: | Although government transfer is a well-known fiscal variable, it can significantly influence the overall supply of money in the economy. Beneficiaries of government transfer program will consume a portion of it while the rest is saved and these initial savings will then be amplified inside the economy through the multiplier effect. Apart from consumption and savings a portion of government transfer will return to government in the form of taxes. Here, in the first place, we intuitively calculate the contribution of government transfer on private consumption, households' savings, government tax revenue and money supply. In the next step we provide a micro-foundation for our intuitive reasoning using a simple endowment economy with finitely lived households. Finally, we empirically calculate our proposed multipliers using impulse response analysis under structural panel VAR framework. Response of money supply to changes in government transfer uncovers a channel through which monetary and fiscal policy may interact. Moreover, variance decomposition of money supply indicates that a significant portion of variance in money supply can be explained in terms of government transfer under structural panel VAR framework. |
| Keywords: | Government transfer; money supply; fiscal policy; monetary policy; interaction between monetary and fiscal policy |
| JEL: | E52 E62 |
| Date: | 2021–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:109394&r= |
| By: | Amir Sufi; Alan M. Taylor |
| Abstract: | Financial crises have large deleterious effects on economic activity, and as such have been the focus of a large body of research. This study surveys the existing literature on financial crises, exploring how crises are measured, whether they are predictable, and why they are associated with economic contractions. Historical narrative techniques continue to form the backbone for measuring crises, but there have been exciting developments in using quantitative data as well. Crises are predictable with growth in credit and elevated asset prices playing an especially important role; recent research points convincingly to the importance of behavioral biases in explaining such predictability. The negative consequences of a crisis are due to both the crisis itself but also to the imbalances that precede a crisis. Crises do not occur randomly, and, as a result, an understanding of financial crises requires an investigation into the booms that precede them. |
| JEL: | E32 E44 E7 G01 G10 N20 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29155&r= |
| By: | Marouane Daoui; Bouchra Benyacoub (FSJES-Fès - Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Economiques et Sociales de Fès) |
| Abstract: | In response to the empirical anomalies relating to the use of VAR models in analysing the impact of monetary policy shocks, the Factor-Augmented VAR (FAVAR) models attempt to provide a practical solution. Moreover, these models, based on dynamic factor models (DFM), make it possible to summarize the information present in a large database into a small number of factors common to all the variables. In this paper, we analyse the effects of monetary policy shocks on economic growth using the FAVAR model on a large number of Moroccan macroeconomic time series (117 quarterly time series from 1985Q1 to 2018Q4). First, we present the econometric framework of the FAVAR model, then the data used and their necessary transformations. Next, we determine the number of factors before estimating the model. Then, we focus on the analysis of the impulse response functions of some indicators of economic growth in Morocco. The results of the analysis indicate that, the overall decline in GDP in response to monetary policy shocks suggests that they have a clearly negative impact on economic growth. |
| Abstract: | En réponse aux anomalies empiriques liées à l'utilisation des modèles VAR dans l'analyse de l'impact des chocs de politique monétaire, les modèles VAR augmentés de facteurs (FAVAR) tentent d'apporter une solution pratique. De plus, ces modèles, basés sur des modèles factoriels dynamiques (DFM), permettent de résumer l'information présente dans une grande base de données en un petit nombre de facteurs communs à toutes les variables. Dans ce papier, nous analysons les effets des chocs de politique monétaire sur la croissance économique en utilisant le modèle FAVAR sur un grand nombre de séries temporelles macroéconomiques marocaines (117 séries temporelles trimestrielles de 1985Q1 à 2018Q4). Dans un premier temps, nous présentons le cadre économétrique du modèle FAVAR, puis les données utilisées et leurs transformations nécessaires. Ensuite, nous déterminons le nombre de facteurs avant d'estimer le modèle. Ensuite, nous nous concentrons sur l'analyse des fonctions de réponse impulsionnelle de certains indicateurs de la croissance économique au Maroc. Les résultats de l'analyse indiquent que, la baisse globale du PIB en réponse aux chocs de politique monétaire suggère que ceux-ci ont un impact clairement négatif sur la croissance économique. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy shocks,Economic growth,Dynamic factor model,FAVAR,Morocco |
| Date: | 2021–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03277727&r= |