Variations in Market Liquidity and the Intraday Interest Rate

Most central banks offer banks participating in large‐value real‐time gross settlement (RTGS) systems a free intraday overdraft facility to discourage banks from actively managing their daylight liquidity. In this paper, we ask whether this facility has kept the intraday interest rate at zero. Using a unique transaction‐level data set on collateralized interbank loans for 2006–12, we find that during periods of financial distress, rates for morning transactions are higher than those in the afternoon. Moreover, this intraday rate correlates with market liquidity, suggesting that rates contain a liquidity premium. This intraday pattern is reduced, but not eliminated by the Eurosystem's accommodative liquidity provision.     

Why Does the Interest Rate Decline Over the Day? Evidence from the Liquidity Crisis

We provide a simple model, able to explain why the overnight (ON) rate follows a downward intraday pattern, implicitly creating a positive intraday interest rate. While this normally reflects only some frictions, a liquidity crisis introduces a new component: the chance of an upward jump of the ON rate, which must be compensated by an intraday decline of the ON rate. By analyzing real time data for the e-MID interbank market, we show that the intraday rate has increased from a negligible level to a significant one after the start of the liquidity crisis in August 2007, and even more so since September 2008. The intraday rate is affected by the likelihood of a dry-up of the ON market, proxied by the 3M Euribor—Eonia swap spread. This evidence supports our model and it shows that a liquidity crisis impairs the ability of central banks to curb the market price of intraday liquidity, even by providing free daylight overdrafts. Such results have implications for the efficiency of the money market and of payment systems, as well as for the operational framework of central banks.     

Illiquidity in the Interbank Payment System Following Wide‐Scale Disruptions

We show how the interbank payment system can become illiquid following wide‐scale disruptions. Two forces are at play in such disruptions—operational problems and changes in participants’ behavior. If the disruption is large enough, hits a key geographic area, or hits a “too‐big‐to‐fail” participant, then the smooth processing of payments can break down, and central bank intervention might be required to reestablish the socially efficient equilibrium. The paper provides a theoretical framework to analyze the effects of events such as the September 11 attack. In addition, the model can be reinterpreted to analyze shocks to fundamentals that affect the parameters of the intraday liquidity management game. We demonstrate this by showing how processing behavior changed in response to heightened credit risk at the time of the Lehman Brothers failure.     

The welfare cost of bank capital requirements

Capital requirements are the cornerstone of modern bank regulation, yet little is known about their welfare cost. This paper measures this cost and finds that it is surprisingly large. I present a simple framework, which embeds the role of liquidity creating banks in an otherwise standard general equilibrium growth model. A capital requirement limits the moral hazard on the part of banks that arises due to deposit insurance. However, this capital requirement is also costly because it reduces the ability of banks to create liquidity. The key insight is that equilibrium asset returns reveal the strength of households’ preferences for liquidity and this allows for the derivation of a simple formula for the welfare cost of capital requirements that is a function of observable variables only. Using US data, the welfare cost of current capital adequacy regulation is found to be equivalent to a permanent loss in consumption of between 0.1% and 1%.     

Moral Hazard versus Liquidity in Household Bankruptcy

This paper studies the role of moral hazard and liquidity in driving household bankruptcy. First, I estimate that increases in potential debt forgiveness have a positive, but small, effect on filing using a regression kink design. Second, exploiting quasi-experimental variation in mortgage payment reductions, I estimate that filing is five times more responsive to cash-on-hand than relief generosity. Using a sufficient statistic, I show the estimates imply large consumption-smoothing benefits of bankruptcy for the marginal filer. Finally, I conclude that 83% of the filing response to dischargeable debt comes from liquidity effects rather than a moral hazard response to financial incentives.     

Risk and concentration in payment and securities settlement systems

What drives the intraday patterns of settlement in payment and securities settlement systems? Using a model of the strategic interaction of participants in these systems to capture some stylized facts about the Federal Reserve's Fedwire funds and securities systems, this paper identifies three factors that influence a participant's decision on when to send transactions intraday: cost of intraday liquidity, extent of settlement risk, and system design. With these factors, the model can make predictions regarding the impact of policy on the concentration of transactions, amount of intraday overdrafts, central bank credit exposure, costs to system participants, and other risks.     

Interest rate smoothing and financial stability

Central banks smooth fluctuations in interest rates based on a belief that this policy promotes financial stability. This belief is based on a presumption that the direct effect of less interest rate volatility on a bank's likelihood of insolvency is the predominant effect of this policy. The main point of this paper is that these policies also give rise to indirect effects that lower financial stability. These indirect effects occur because the policy itself alters bank behavior. In effect, if the central bank provides (liquidity) insurance (at zero premia), it may introduce a classic moral hazard problem that encourages risk taking by banks. As a result, to maintain a given degree of financial stability, a bank regulator may, in fact, need to impose a higher prudential capital requirement when an interest rate smoothing policy is in place. The paper concludes that the link between interest rate smoothing policy and financial stability may be more complicated than is generally recognized.     

Alternative central bank credit policies for liquidity provision in a model of payments

I explore alternative central bank policies for liquidity provision in a model of payments. I use a mechanism design approach so that agents’ incentives to default are explicit and contingent on the credit policy designed. In the first policy, the central bank invests in costly enforcement and charges an interest rate to recover costs. I show that the second-best solution is not distortionary. In the second policy, the central bank requires collateral. If collateral does not bear an opportunity cost, then the solution is first best. Otherwise, the second best is distortionary because collateral serves as a binding credit constraint.     

The Interaction of Monetary and Macroprudential Policies

I analyze a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model where the financing of productive investment is affected by a moral hazard problem. I solve for jointly Ramsey‐optimal monetary and macroprudential policies. I find that when a financial friction is present in addition to the standard nominal friction, the optimal policy can replicate the first‐best allocation if the social planner can conduct both monetary and macroprudential policy. Using monetary policy alone is not enough: a policy trade‐off between stabilizing inflation and output gap emerges. When policy follows simple rules, the source of fluctuations is relevant for the choice of the appropriate policy mix.     

Reconciling Bagehot and the Fed's Response to September 11

Bagehot (1873) states that to prevent bank panics a central bank should provide liquidity at a "very high rate of interest." In contrast, most of the theoretical literature on liquidity provision suggests that central banks should lend at an interest rate of zero. This is broadly consistent with the Federal Reserve's behavior in the days following September 11, 2001. This paper shows that both policies can be reconciled. With commodity money, as in Bagehot's time, liquidity is scarce and a high price allows banks to self-select. In contrast, the Fed has a virtually unlimited ability to temporarily expand the money supply so self-selection is unnecessary.     

Deposit insurance, bank regulation, and financial system risks

Empirical evidence is presented to show that in modern times banks can hedge liquidity shocks but could not do so prior to FDIC insurance. However, the government's limitations in properly pricing FDIC insurance are leading to many current examples of moral hazard. A model is presented to show that if insurance premiums are set to be “actuarially fair,” incentives for banks to take excessive systematic risks remain. Motivated by empirical evidence that money market mutual funds also can hedge liquidity shocks, I consider an alternative government insurance system that mitigates distortions to risk-taking yet preserves liquidity hedging and information synergies.     

The Interbank Market after August 2007: What Has Changed,and Why?

After the onset of the financial crisis, spreads between interbank interest rates on unsecured and secured deposits for the major world currencies became exceptionally large and volatile. First, we find that the phenomenon was mainly driven by aggregate—rather than bank‐specific—factors, notably risk aversion, and accounting practices; by contrast, funding liquidity, capital shortage, and central bank interventions were not important determinants. Second, prior to August 2007, the spread was broadly insensitive to key borrower characteristics, whereas afterward it became somewhat more reactive to measures of creditworthiness. Third, conditions for big borrowers became relatively more favorable during the crisis, suggesting that moral hazard risks related to the “too‐big‐to‐fail” argument have increased. These results are discussed in the light of theories on the interbank market during a crisis.     

Rediscounting under Aggregate Risk with Moral Hazard

Freeman (1999) proposes a model in which discount window lending and open‐market operations have different effects. This is important because in most of the literature these policies are indistinguishable. However, Freeman's argument that the central bank should absorb losses associated with default to provide risk sharing stands in stark contrast to the concern that central banks should limit their exposure to credit risk. We extend Freeman's model by introducing moral hazard. With moral hazard, the central bank should avoid absorbing losses and Freeman's argument breaks down. However, we show that policies resembling discount window lending and open‐market operations can still be distinguished in this new framework. The optimal policy is for the central bank to make a restricted number of creditors compete for funds. By restricting the number of agents, the central bank can limit the moral hazard problem. By making them compete with each other, the central bank can exploit market information that reveals the state of the economy.     

Liquidity shocks and intraday price reaction

Using a global sample of high-frequency data, I investigate how liquidity shocks affect intraday price movements. I find a negative association between liquidity shocks and price impact. This finding remains robust after considering the exogeneity of liquidity shocks, using alternative windows to measure liquidity shocks, and controlling for volume shocks and volatility shocks. Additional tests show that the documented relation stems from idiosyncratic shocks and sell-order shocks. Moreover, I find that liquidity shocks are likely driven by uninformed traders. My evidence suggests that the market requires 30 min to accomplish price adjustments when meeting liquidity shocks.     

Monetary Policy and Asset Prices: A Mechanism Design Approach

We investigate the effects of monetary policy on asset prices in economies where assets are traded periodically in bilateral meetings. The trading mechanism is designed to maximize social welfare taking as given the frictions in the environment and monetary policy. We show that asset price “bubbles” emerge in a constrained‐efficient monetary equilibrium only if liquidity is abundant and the first‐best allocation is implementable. In contrast, if liquidity is scarce, assets are priced at their fundamental value in any constrained‐efficient monetary equilibrium, in which case an increase in inflation has no effect on asset prices, but it reduces output and welfare.     

Banks and markets in a monetary economy

Modern financial sectors consist of banks, asset markets and a central bank. This paper builds a model where these institutions provide different financial services, and their interaction supports efficient allocations. When one institution is missing equilibria are, by construction, inefficient. The paper analyzes how interest rates and asset prices depend on the structure of the financial sector and characterizes the central bank policy that supports efficient allocations. The analysis relies on the difference between liquidity and real shocks, and relates the notion of liquidity used in this paper to the one adopted in other studies.     

International lending of last resort and moral hazard: A model of IMF's catalytic finance

This paper analyzes the trade-off between official liquidity provision and debtor moral hazard in international financial crises. In the model, crises are caused by the interaction of bad fundamentals, self-fulfilling runs and policies by three classes of optimizing agents: international investors, the local government and an international official lender. Limited contingent liquidity support helps to prevent liquidity runs by raising the number of investors willing to lend to the country for any given fundamentals, i.e., it can have catalytic effects. The influence of the official lender is increasing in the size of its interventions and the precision of its information. Unlike the conventional view stressing debtor moral hazard, our model identifies circumstances in which official lending actually strengthens a government's incentive to implement desirable but costly policies.     

Interbank market liquidity and central bank intervention

We develop a simple model of the interbank market where banks trade a long term, safe asset. When there is a lack of opportunities for banks to hedge idiosyncratic and aggregate liquidity shocks, the interbank market is characterized by excessive price volatility. In such a situation, a central bank can implement the constrained efficient allocation by using open market operations to fix the short term interest rate. It can be constrained efficient for banks to hoard liquidity and stop trading with each other if there is sufficient uncertainty about aggregate liquidity demand compared to idiosyncratic liquidity demand.     

Monetary Policy in a Low‐Inflation Environment: Developing a State‐Contingent Price‐Level Target

A number of academic studies find that either price‐level targeting or temporary above‐average inflation are nearly optimal policies to address a liquidity trap crisis. Still, central bankers and the public generally question whether even a temporarily higher inflation rate could be beneficial in addressing a liquidity trap or could be consistent with price stability over the longer term. At the same time, however, the Federal Reserve's projections for high unemployment and low inflation do not seem to be consistent with the best monetary policies to address the Fed's dual mandate responsibilities. Accordingly, it is useful to seriously discuss these potentially beneficial alternative policies.     

The intraday determination of liquidity in the NYSE LIFFE equity option markets

We exploit an extensive high-frequency data set of all individual equity options trading at New York Stock Exchange London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Amsterdam, London and Paris) in order to study the determination of liquidity during the trading day. In particular, we focus on two main aspects of option liquidity: (i) the intraday behaviour of equity option liquidity and its determinants and (ii) the influence of macroeconomic events and commonality on intraday equity option liquidity. Inventory management models cannot explain the intraday variation in option spreads and depths. Instead, we show that the option liquidity measures are strongly correlated with option volatility. Increases in volatility are associated with decreases in liquidity, a finding that is in line with information asymmetry models and the derivatives hedging theory. However, the relationship between spreads and volume varies across the three markets. Option liquidity reacts strongly to macroeconomic news announcements, especially US events. The average systematic liquidity component is 12% for Amsterdam, 14% for London and 16% for Paris.