Negative real interest rates

Standard textbook general equilibrium term structure models such as that developed by Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross [1985b. “A Theory of the Term Structure of Interest Rates.” Econometrica 53 (2): 385–407], do not accommodate negative real interest rates. Given this, the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross [1985b. “A Theory of the Term Structure of Interest Rates.” Econometrica 53 (2): 385–407] ‘technological uncertainty variable’ is formulated in terms of the Pearson Type IV probability density. The Pearson Type IV encompasses mean-reverting sample paths, time-varying volatility and also allows for negative real interest rates. The Fokker–Planck (i.e. the Chapman–Kolmogorov) equation is then used to determine the conditional moments of the instantaneous real rate of interest. These enable one to determine the mean and variance of the accumulated (i.e. integrated) real rate of interest on a bank (or loan) account when interest accumulates at the instantaneous real rate of interest defined by the Pearson Type IV probability density. A pricing formula for pure discount bonds is also developed. Our empirical analysis of short-dated Treasury bills shows that real interest rates in the UK and the USA are strongly compatible with a general equilibrium term structure model based on the Pearson Type IV probability density.     

Economic news,exchange rates and interest rates

The paper examines the post-October 1979 response of exchange rates and interest rates to the new information contained in the first announcement of fifteen US macroeconomic series. Markets respond primarily to monetary news, but also to news about the trade deficit, domestic inflation, and variables that reflect the state of the business cycle. For all fifteen macroeconomic variables, an increase (decrease) in interest rates is accompanied by an appreciation (depreciation) of the dollar, which is consistent with models that stress price rigidity and absence of purchasing power parity.     

Arbitrage bounds for the term structure of interest rates

This paper proposes a methodology for simultaneously computing a smooth estimator of the term structure of interest rates and economically justified bounds for it. It unifies existing estimation procedures that apply regression, smoothing and linear programming methods. Our methodology adjusts for possibly asymmetric transaction costs. Various regression and smoothing techniques have been suggested for estimating the term structure. They focus on what functional form to choose or which measure of smoothness to maximize, mostly neglecting the discussion of the appropriate measure of fit. Arbitrage theory provides insight into how small the pricing error will be and in which sense, depending on the structure of transaction costs. We prove a general result relating the minimal pricing error one incurs in pricing all bonds with one term structure to the maximal arbitrage profit one can achieve with restricted portfolios.     

降低信用卡透支利率和透支利率市场化改革探析

信用卡业务作为金融业的一项新兴业务,正以迅猛之势在国内发展.在为公众提供"无担保、无抵押、无指定用途的个人小额消费信贷服务"的同时,信用卡业务也为促进消费、拉动内需做出了积极的贡献.     

Preferred habitat for liquidity in international short-term interest rates

Risk-shifting window dressing and a preferred habitat for liquidity have been offered as possible explanations as to why US money market rates are higher before the year-end than afterwards. The two hypotheses differ in the timing of the rate decline at the year-end and the evidence on the timing of the decline supports the preferred habitat hypothesis in US money markets. This paper extends this line of research to the behavior of international short-term interest rates at year-ends and quarter-ends using London interbank offer rates (LIBOR) for 11 different currencies. The results suggest that the behavior of LIBOR for five currencies: the US Dollar, Euro, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, and German Mark is consistent with year-end or quarter-end preferred habitats for liquidity. Other currencies do not demonstrate consistently distinct patterns in turn-of-the-year and turn-of-the-quarter yields. None of the results provides any support for risk-shifting window dressing.     

On the term structure of interest rates

The paper presents a valuation formula for default free bonds for a certain class of tastes when the instantaneously riskfree rate of interest follows a geometric Wiener process. Properties of the resulting term structure of interest rates are studied, and an application of the analysis to the pricing of Treasury Bills is proposed.     

Money,interest rates,and risk

This paper analyzes the role of the risk in the form of the volatility of open market interest rates as a factor in the demand for money. We demonstrate, using an inventory theoretic model of money demand, that increases in interest rate volatility will increase the demand for money. We then present empirical evidence that the demand for money has been influenced by alterations in the volatility of open market rates using standard specifications of the demand for money.     

Banking market conditions and deposit interest rates

This paper shows that the impact of market structure on bank deposit interest rates is complex. Both market size structure and multimarket bank presence have independent effects on rates. There is evidence that mid-size banks were more aggressive competitors than other banks, but that the effect of market structure on deposit rates has evolved over time, with mega-banks recently becoming more aggressive competitors. This may be related to the growth of mega-banks in many markets. These findings have implications for existing theories of deposit pricing and, by extension, antitrust policy in banking.     

American option valuation under stochastic interest rates

By applying Ho, Stapleton and Subrahmanyam's (1997, hereafter HSS) generalised Geske–Johnson (1984, hereafter GJ) method, this paper provides analytic solutions for the valuation and hedging of American options in a stochastic interest rate economy. The proposed method simplifies HSS's three-dimensional solution to a one-dimensional solution. The simulations verify that the proposed method is more efficient and accurate than the HSS (1997) method. We illustrate how the price, the delta, and the rho of an American option vary between the stochastic and non-stochastic interest rate models. The magnitude of this effect depends on the moneyness of the option, interest rates, volatilities of the underlying asset price and the bond price, as well as the correlation between them. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The high-frequency response of exchange rates and interest rates to macroeconomic announcements

The joint movements of exchange rates and U.S. and foreign term structures over short-time windows around macro announcements are studied using a 14-year span of high-frequency data. In order to evaluate whether the joint effects can be reconciled with conventional theory, the implications of these joint movements for changes in expected future exchange rates and changes in foreign exchange risk premia are deduced. For several real macro announcements, a stronger than expected release appreciates the dollar today, and must either (i) lower the risk premium for holding foreign currency rather than dollars, or (ii) imply net expected dollar depreciation over the ensuing decade.     

Modeling the dynamics of Chinese spot interest rates

Using the daily data of Chinese 7-day repo rates from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2008, this paper tests a variety of popular spot rate models, including single-factor diffusion, GARCH, Markov regime-switching and jump-diffusion models. We document that Chinese spot rates are subject to both market forces and administrative forces. GARCH, regime-switching and jump-diffusion models capture some important features of the dynamics of Chinese spot rates, but all models under study are overwhelmingly rejected. We further explore possible sources of model misspecification using diagnostic tests.     

The term structures of equity and interest rates

This paper proposes a dynamic risk-based model capable of jointly explaining the term structure of interest rates, returns on the aggregate market, and the risk and return characteristics of value and growth stocks. Both the term structure of interest rates and returns on value and growth stocks convey information about how the representative investor values cash flows of different maturities. We model how the representative investor perceives risks of these cash flows by specifying a parsimonious stochastic discount factor for the economy. Shocks to dividend growth, the real interest rate, and expected inflation are priced, but shocks to the price of risk are not. Given reasonable assumptions for dividends and inflation, we show that the model can simultaneously account for the behavior of aggregate stock returns, an upward-sloping yield curve, the failure of the expectations hypothesis, and the poor performance of the capital asset pricing model.     

Reconsidering the role of money for output, prices and interest rates

New Keynesian models of monetary policy downplay the role of monetary aggregates, in the sense that the level of output, prices, and interest rates can be determined without knowledge of the quantity of money. This paper evaluates the empirical validity of this prediction by studying the effects of shocks to monetary aggregates using a vector autoregression (VAR). Shocks to monetary aggregates are identified by the restrictions suggested by New Keynesian monetary models. Contrary to the theoretical predictions, shocks to broad monetary aggregates have substantial and persistent effects on output, prices and interest rates.     

The impact of jump risks on nominal interest rates and foreign exchange rates

This article investigates the relationship between the nominal interest rate and inflation and also the forward exchange rate under a general specification of the underlying processes govering the foreign exchange rate. There are three distinct risks that affect the relation between the real rate of interest and the nominal rate namely, consumption risk, diffusion risk, and the existence of jump risks of inflation. Jump risks lower the nominal interest rate because of jump hedging of a nominal bond. The forward exchange rate depends on the expected depreciation of the domestic currency as well as these three risks. As the domestic jump risks increase, the domestic nominal interest rate decreases and the forward exchange rate decreases.     

On financial guarantee insurance under stochastic interest rates

We extend the financial guarantee insurance literature by modeling, under stochastic interest rates, private financial guarantees when the guarantor potentially defaults. By performing numerical simulations under plausible parameters values, we characterize the differential impact of the incorporation of stochasticity of interest rates on the valuation of both public and private guarantees.     

Liquidity provision,interest rates,and unemployment

The effective liquidity supply of the economy—the weighted-sum of all assets that serve as media of exchange—matters for interest rates and unemployment. We formalize this idea by adding an over-the-counter market with collateralized trades to the Mortensen–Pissarides model. An increase in public liquidity through a higher supply of real government bonds raises the real interest rate, crowding out private liquidity and increasing unemployment. If unemployment is inefficiently high, keeping liquidity scarce can be socially optimal. A liquidity crisis affecting the acceptability of private assets as collateral widens the rate-of-return difference between private and public liquidity, also increasing unemployment.     

The international financial market and US interest rates

This paper examines the linkages between the Eurodollar and US domestic financial markets. It is shown that using weekly data allows the isolation of significant fluctuations being transmitted between markets in both directions. In particular, financial markets in the US are affected significantly by foreign events.It is impossible to reach precise conclusions about the causes of historical variation in the rates. However, this paper provides evidence that at most 40% of the variation in Eurodollar interest rates over the 1975–1978 period can be traced to domestic US sources and that between about one-fifth and two-thirds of the variation in domestic rates can be traced to foreign sources.     

Monetary policy transparency and pass-through of retail interest rates

This paper examines the degree of pass-through and adjustment speed of retail interest rates in response to changes in benchmark market rates in New Zealand during the period 1994–2004. We consider the effects of policy transparency and financial structure of the monetary transmission mechanism. New Zealand is the first OECD country to adopt a full-fledged inflation targeting regime with specific accountability and transparency provisions. Policy transparency was further enhanced by a shift from quantity (settlement cash) to price (interest rate) operating targets in 1999. Using Phillips–Loretan estimates of cointegrating regressions we find complete long-term pass-through for some but not all retail rates. Our results also show that the introduction of the Official Cash Rate (OCR) increased the pass-through of floating and deposit rates but not fixed mortgage rates. In line with previous studies we find the immediate pass-through of market interest rates to bank retail rates to be incomplete. Although we find no statistical evidence for asymmetric response of retail rates to changes in market rates other than for business lending rates in the pre OCR period, differences in the magnitude of mean adjustment lags indicate that banks appear to pass on decreases to fixed mortgage rates faster. Overall, our results confirm that monetary policy rate has more influence on short-term interest rates and that increased transparency has lowered instrument volatility and enhanced the efficacy of policy.