The open economy consequences of U.S. monetary policy

We consider the open economy consequences of U.S. monetary policy, extending the identification approach of Romer and Romer (2004) and adapting it for use with asset prices. Intended policy changes are orthogonalized against the economy’s expected future path, which captures any effects from open economy variables. Estimated from a set of bilateral VARs, the dynamic responses of the exchange rate, foreign interest rate, and foreign output are consistent with recent work that identifies U.S. policy via futures market changes and a priori impulse response bounds. We compare the two approaches, finding important commonalities. We also outline some advantages of our approach.     

Comparing the impact of Chinese and U.S. economic policy uncertainty on the volatility of major global stock markets

This study compares the impact of Chinese and U.S. economic policy uncertainty (EPU) (proxied by the EPU index) on the volatility of 11 major stock markets. Unlike previous research that only utilizes monthly EPU for such a comparison, this study uses both daily and monthly data to examine the impact within a month as well as over months. In order to provide a detailed analysis, EPU shocks are investigated from a two-sided viewpoint: one considering the effects of EPU indices as exogenous shocks, and the other examining the spillovers from EPU indices as endogenous variables. Meanwhile, the role of global turmoil, such as the 2007–2008 global financial crisis (GFC) and the COVID-19 pandemic, in influencing the impact of Chinese (or U.S.) EPU is highlighted. The results show that the impact of U.S. EPU is reinforced at both daily and monthly frequencies during the GFC, with a greater effect on the European stock markets. After the GFC, the rising influence of Chinese EPU is observed at a monthly frequency in several markets in Asia and elsewhere. Overall, the dynamic spillovers from the EPU indices to stock volatility suggest the dominant role of U.S. EPU in most markets at a daily frequency, while the extent of the spillovers is driven by turbulent events, including the GFC and the COVID-19 pandemic.     

A comprehensive investigation on the predictive power of economic policy uncertainty from non-U.S. countries for U.S. stock market returns

This study uses economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indices for ten developed countries, three diffusion models, and five combination methods to forecast excess returns in the U.S. stock market. It shows empirically that, over the period January 1997 to January 2022, non-U.S. EPU indices have better predictive power for U.S. equity market excess returns than the U.S. EPU index itself. This illustrates how economic information from international markets can affect the U.S. stock market. This finding challenges the extensively recognized view that the U.S. is where important market signals are initially transmitted to other markets, suggesting that this belief is incomplete. Our outcomes are robust to a battery of tests covering model selection, model specification, forecast horizons, and the pandemic period, and their economic values are assessed. The findings are essential for the financial field to confront future fierce situations and crises.     

The contribution of rising school quality to U.S. economic growth

U.S. public school expenditures per pupil increased by a factor of 9 during the 20th century. This paper quantifies how much U.S. labor quality has grown due to the rise in educational spending. A schooling model and cross-sectional earnings variations across cohorts are exploited to identify the effect of the increased school expenditures on labor quality growth. The findings are that (i) U.S. labor quality increased by 0.4% per year between 1967 and 2000, one-fifth of which is attributable to the rise in educational spending; and (ii) labor quality growth explains one-quarter of the rise in labor productivity.     

External shocks, U.S. monetary policy and macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets

Estimated structural VARs show that external shocks are an important source of macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets. Furthermore, U.S. monetary policy shocks affect interest rates and the exchange rate in a typical emerging market quickly and strongly. The price level and real output in a typical emerging market respond to U.S. monetary policy shocks by more than the price level and real output in the U.S. itself. These findings are consistent with the idea that “when the U.S. sneezes, emerging markets catch a cold.” At the same time, U.S. monetary policy shocks are not important for emerging markets relative to other kinds of external shocks.     

A structural decomposition of the U.S. trade balance: Productivity, demographics and fiscal policy

The US external deficits have been the most striking manifestation of global imbalances. This paper investigates the contribution of productivity growth, demographics and fiscal policy in accounting for the evolution of the US external imbalances against industrialized countries during the last three decades. Productivity growth plays a dominant role. Demographics explain a non-negligible and nearly permanent component of the US trade deficit. Furthermore, the international demographic transition is crucial for large US external imbalances to be consistent with the persistent decline of world real interest rates observed in the data. Fiscal policy is of minor importance.     

Risk and wealth effects of U.S. firm joint venture activity

Using a sample of US firms engaged in joint venture activity primarily in the 1990s, we test the hypothesis that joint venture activity is motivated by a desire for efficient risk sharing. We find that approximately ninety-six percent of our sample experiences a risk change in response to joint venture activity. A significant proportion of these experience a reduction in beta. No market price response is evident in conjunction with this reduction. In addition, the average parent firm experiences a significant increase in firm risk, which we attribute to taking on the risky joint venture. This increase in risk is particularly pronounced for firms engaged in international joint ventures and is accompanied by a positive market response. Investment stake, pre-venture firm profitability, size and private risk increasing characteristics appear to influence the wealth character of the joint venture. We interpret that there may be a positive market premium for international diversification effects and/or for the flexibility that the real option joint venture opportunity provides.     

美国信用卡行业真的走出严冬?

美国多家大型信用卡发卡机构于2009年8月17日陆续向其监管机构递交了7月的信用卡违约率报告.从报告来看,各信用卡发卡机构的数据要好于预期.其中,美国最大规模的信用卡发行机构--摩根大通宣布其信用卡违约率由6月的8.04%下降至7.92%.美国银行的坏账率为13.81%,较6月回落了0.05个百分点,这是处境艰难的美国银行近一年来首次出现违约率下滑.     

The economic gain of being small in the mutual fund industry: U.S. and international evidence

Motivated by the ongoing debate on the interaction between fund size and fund performance, we investigate the effect of asset growth on fund performance. We explicitly measure the economic gain (loss) of being a small (large) fund by comparing the average performance of a large fund vis à vis its average performance when it was small. Our results reveal that for the U.S. actively managed equity funds, the risk-adjusted return differential amounts to 7.08% per year in favor of small funds. Moreover, we fail to identify any performance loss for a fund relative to its history unless it belongs in the top 70% of fund size. However, the documented implicit performance handicap of U.S. large equity funds is not met in funds investing outside the U.S. Our findings carry important implications for the mutual fund industry and for the fund selection process.     

Symmetric and asymmetric nonlinear causalities between oil prices and the U.S. economic sectors

This study investigates the causal dynamics of the U.S. sector price changes and oil price changes using the symmetric nonlinear and asymmetric nonlinear causality tests. We find a unidirectional causality from each sector to the oil market using the Granger and MWald linear causality tests. However, the symmetric nonlinear and asymmetric nonlinear causality for negative price changes tests yield unidirectional causality from the oil to the sector price changes which sharply contrast the evidence using the linear models. We find bidirectional causality using the asymmetric nonlinear test for positive price changes, suggesting temporal, dual and nonlinear information flow during bull markets. Our results from the nonlinear and asymmetric causality tests remain robust after accounting for structural breaks. The empirical findings unravel nonlinear interactions between sector price and oil price changes as well as the importance of signs of changes in the interacting variables, implying oil returns may need to be priced when forecasting sector returns.     

Positive and normative judgments implicit in U.S. tax policy,and the costs of unequal growth and recessions

Calculating the welfare implications of changes to economic policy or shocks requires economists to decide on a normative criterion. One approach is to elicit the relevant moral criteria from real-world policy choices, converting a normative decision into a positive inference, as in the recent surge of “inverse-optimum” research. We find that capitalizing on the potential of this approach is not as straightforward as we might hope. We perform the inverse-optimum inference on U.S. tax policy from 1979 through 2010 and argue that the results either undermine the normative relevance of the approach or challenge conventional assumptions upon which economists routinely rely when performing welfare evaluations.     

Economic policy uncertainty,agency problem,and funding structure: Evidence from U.S. banking industry

We empirically examine the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on banks’ funding structure (FUD). Using an extensive dataset of U.S. bank holding companies, we find that high policy uncertainty strengthens banks’ FUD. For banks with a pre-existing low FUD, an increase in EPU raises FUD. However, for banks with a pre-existing high FUD, the relationship between EPU and FUD becomes negative and economically significant. Considering the lack of relevant studies, our paper contributes to the literature and provides implications for policymakers and practitioners in the banking industry.     

The impact of unconventional monetary policy on the tail risks of stock markets between U.S. and Japan

Facing the economic downturn, the central bank of U.S. and Japan adopts the unconventional monetary policy to stimulate their economy. This paper studies the quantitative easing policy effectiveness via the tail risks of stock markets in the U.S., Japan and the other 74 countries. Although the stock markets of U.S. and Japan reveals the announcement-day effects of the QE policy, this study finds an asymmetric tail risk of return distribution on the QE policy effect. The post-period right-tail and left-tail risks of the stock markets are significantly smaller and larger than that of the pre-period of the QE programs, respectively. This implies that the tail risks of stock returns have dissimilar interdependence with the QE programs. Furthermore, the geographical dependence is the major factor that determines the contagion of stock market, and the fragility of foreign stock market caused by the US QE policy is larger than that of the Japan.     

Estimates of economic rates of return for the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, 1976–1987

Estimation procedures are designed to consider features of publicly-available financial accounting information which allegedly compromise its use to estimate economic internal rates of return. These procedures, which focus on cashflows rather than conventional accounting income measures, are used to investigate the relative profitability of the U.S. pharamaceutical industry. Results indicate that pharmceutical returns exceed returns for comparable U.S. industrial firms during the period encompassed by the study. Differences for these comparisons are substantially less than what is implied by an uniformed use of accounting information, however. In particular, differences in implied internal rates of return of 2.1% to 3.8%, whereas differences in accounting rates of return are 4.0% to 5.6%. Results are robust for a wide variety of assumptions about industry growth rates and investment payout profiles, characteristics which potentially cause accounting-based return measures to differ from underlying internal rates of return.     

Nonlinear relationship between monetary policy and stock returns: Evidence from the U.S.

This paper studies the relationship between monetary policy and stock market return in the U.S. using nonlinear econometric models. It first employs a univariate Markov-switching model on each of the three stock indices and three monetary policy variables, displaying significant regime-switching patterns and common movements. This paper then uses a Markov-switching dynamic bi-factor model to simultaneously extract two latent common factors from stock indices and monetary policy variables to represent monetary policy changes and stock market movements separately. The smoothed probabilities of regimes demonstrate that expansionary monetary policy regimes follow economic recessions, but bear stock markets usually occur before economic recessions. The maximum likelihood estimation results show that expansionary monetary policy such as a decrease in the federal funds rate raises stock returns, but stock returns don't directly influence monetary policy decision.     

99 Luftballons: Monetary policy and the house price boom across U.S. states

We use a dynamic factor model estimated on quarterly state-level data from 1986 to 2005 via Bayesian methods to disentangle the relative importance of the common component in OFHEO house price movements from local (state- or region-specific) shocks. We find that historically movements in house prices were mainly driven by the local component. The recent period (2001-2005) has been different: the increase in house prices is a national phenomenon. We use a VAR to investigate the extent to which expansionary monetary policy is responsible for this phenomenon. We find the impact of policy shocks on house prices to be small in comparison with the magnitude of recent fluctuations.