Journal of Money, Credit and Banking

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• Generalized Stability of Monetary Unions Under Regime Switching in Monetary and Fiscal Policies

  Earlier studies on the stability of monetary unions show that an inflation‐targeting central bank imposes strict budgetary requirements on fiscal policy to obtain a unique stable equilibrium. Failure of only one fiscal authority to meet these requirements already results in nonexistence of equilibrium. Nevertheless, it might prove useful to temporarily depart from such requirements in order to absorb country‐specific shocks. We show that such departures are feasible if fiscal authorities commit to switch to more sustainable fiscal regimes in the future. Debt devaluation and fiscal bailouts may also broaden the range of policy stances under which monetary unions are stable.

• Can Optimism be a Remedy for Present Bias?

  Under economies with hyperbolic preferences, vast research has investigated welfare‐improving tax policies to resolve capital misallocation issues. In this paper, we suggests an alternative channel to overcome a form of this issue associated with consumer's present bias—optimism, as defined by overexpectation of future productivity. We show that even though optimism negatively impacts consumers under normal circumstances, a moderate level of it can be beneficial when consumers have hyperbolic preferences. On the other hand, pessimism always negatively impacts consumer welfare. A steady‐state analysis shows that the quantitative impact of optimism on welfare can be sizable.

• The Skewness of the Price Change Distribution: A New Touchstone for Sticky Price Models

  We present a new way of empirically evaluating various sticky price models that are used to assess the degree of monetary nonneutrality. While menu cost models uniformly predict that price change skewness and dispersion fall with inflation, in the Calvo model, both rise. However, the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from the late 1970s onward show that skewness does not fall with inflation, while dispersion does. We present a random menu cost model that, with a menu cost distribution that has a strong Calvo flavor, can match the empirical patterns. The model exhibits much more monetary nonneutrality than existing menu cost models.

• When to Lean against the Wind

  In this paper, we show that policymakers can distinguish between good and bad credit booms with high accuracy and they can do so in real time. Evidence from 17 countries over nearly 150 years of modern financial history shows that credit booms that are accompanied by house price booms and a rising loan‐to‐deposit ratio are much more likely to end in a systemic banking crisis than other credit booms. We evaluate the predictive accuracy for different classification models and show that characteristics observed in real time contain valuable information for sorting the data into good and bad booms.

• A Closer Look at the Behavior of Uncertainty and Disagreement: Micro Evidence from the Euro Area

  This paper examines point and density forecasts of real GDP growth, inflation, and unemployment from the European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters. We analyze individual uncertainty measures as well as introduce individual point‐ and density‐based disagreement measures. The analysis indicates forecasters’ uncertainty and disagreement display substantial heterogeneity and persistence, with the latter feature challenging a key prediction of expectations models emphasizing information frictions. We also find that uncertainty is characterized by prominent respondent effects and disagreement by prominent time effects, suggesting these divergent properties underlie the well‐documented weak uncertainty–disagreement linkage. Taken together, our results provide a basis for further development of expectations models.

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• Labor Responses, Regulation, and Business Churn

  We develop a model of sluggish firm entry to explain short‐run labor responses to technology shocks. We show that the labor response to technology and its persistence depend on the degree of returns to labor and the rate of firm entry. Existing empirical results support our theory based on short‐run labor responses across U.S. industries. We derive closed‐form transition paths that show the result occurs because labor adjusts instantaneously while firms are sluggish, and closed‐form eigenvalues show that stricter entry regulation results in slower convergence to steady state. Finally, we show that our theoretical results hold in a quantitative model with capital accumulation and interest rate dynamics.

• Exchange Rates and Fundamentals: A General Equilibrium Exploration

  Engel and West (2005) show that the observed near random‐walk behavior of nominal exchange rates is an equilibrium outcome of a partial equilibrium asset approach when economic fundamentals follow exogenous first‐order integrated processes and the discount factor approaches one. In this paper, I argue that the unit market discount factor creates a theoretical trade‐off within a two‐country general equilibrium model. The unit discount factor generates near random‐walk nominal exchange rates, but it counterfactually implies perfect consumption risk sharing and flat money demand. Bayesian posterior simulation exercises, based on post‐Bretton Woods data from Canada and the United States, reveal difficulties in reconciling the equilibrium random‐walk proposition within the canonical model; in particular, the market discount factor is identified as being much smaller than one. A relative money demand shock is identified as the main driver of nominal exchange rates.

• Learning and the Effectiveness of Central Bank Forward Guidance

  This paper examines the link between expectations formation and the effectiveness of central bank forward guidance. A standard New Keynesian model is extended to include forward guidance shocks in the monetary policy rule. Agents form expectations about future macro‐economic variables via either the standard rational expectations hypothesis or an adaptive learning model. The results show that the assumption of rational expectations overstates the effects of forward guidance relative to adaptive learning during an economic crisis. Thus, if monetary policy is based on a model with rational expectations, the results of forward guidance could be potentially  misleading.

Featured documents

• The Skewness of the Price Change Distribution: A New Touchstone for Sticky Price Models

  We present a new way of empirically evaluating various sticky price models that are used to assess the degree of monetary nonneutrality. While menu cost models uniformly predict that price change skewness and dispersion fall with inflation, in the Calvo model, both rise. However, the U.S. Consumer...

• Can Optimism be a Remedy for Present Bias?

  Under economies with hyperbolic preferences, vast research has investigated welfare‐improving tax policies to resolve capital misallocation issues. In this paper, we suggests an alternative channel to overcome a form of this issue associated with consumer's present bias—optimism, as defined by...

• The Shadow Margins of Labor Market Slack

  We use a mix of new and existing data to develop the Aggregate Hours Gap (AHG), a novel measure of labor market underutilization. Our measure differentiates individuals by detailed categories of labor market participation and uses data on their desired work hours as a measure of their potential...

• How Does the Stock Market View Bank Regulatory Capital Forbearance Policies?

  During the subprime crisis, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has shown, once again, laxity in resolving and closing insolvent institutions. Ronn and Verma (1986) call the tolerance level below which a bank closure is triggered the regulatory policy parameter. We derive a model in...

• Can the U.S. Interbank Market Be Revived?

  The U.S. interbank market essentially disappeared as the reserve supply dramatically increased after the 2007–2008 crisis. We build a model to study whether the interbank market can revive if the reserve supply decreases sufficiently. The market may not revive due to balance sheet costs associated...

• Income Redistribution, Consumer Credit, and Keeping Up with the Riches

  In this study, we set up a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with upward looking consumption comparison and show that consumption externalities are an important driver of consumer credit dynamics. Our model economy is populated by two different household types. Investors, who hold ...

• Uncertainty, Incentives, and Misallocation

  This paper identifies a new propagation mechanism by which the effects of business cycle shocks amplify in the context of the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework. Business cycle shocks, such as heightened uncertainty, and positive monetary shocks endogenously magnify the cross‐sectional...

• When to Lean against the Wind

  In this paper, we show that policymakers can distinguish between good and bad credit booms with high accuracy and they can do so in real time. Evidence from 17 countries over nearly 150 years of modern financial history shows that credit booms that are accompanied by house price booms and a rising...

• Negative Monetary Policy Rates and Systemic Banks' Risk‐Taking: Evidence from the Euro Area Securities Register

  We show that negative monetary policy rates induce systemic banks to reach‐for‐yield. For identification, we exploit the introduction of negative deposit rates by the European Central Bank in June 2014 and a novel securities register for the 26 largest euro area banking groups. Banks with more...

• A Further Look at the Propagation of Monetary Policy Shocks in HANK

  We provide quantitative guidance on whether and to what extent different elements of Heterogeneous Agent New Keynesian (HANK) models amplify or dampen the response of aggregate consumption to a monetary policy shock. We emphasize four findings. First, the introduction of capital adjustment costs...