亲历美联储地下金库

纽约市自由路第33号是一座十几层、有花岗岩外饰的老建筑,在纽约下城金融中心区鳞次栉比的摩天大楼中,非常地不起眼.不过千万别小看它,它就是美国联邦储备纽约银行的所在.     

Congress and the Federal Reserve

We examine legislative activity to determine when Congress threatens the Fed and whether this pressure affects monetary policy. By the late‐1980s Congress shifted from threatening when unemployment was high to threatening when inflation was high. We use the Romer and Romer monetary shocks to isolate changes in the federal funds rate that cannot be explained by economic conditions and ask whether these shocks respond to pressure. In the 1970s, the Fed responded to bills credibly threatening Fed powers by lowering the federal funds target below that prescribed by current and forecast economic conditions. However, this accommodation ceased in the mid‐1980s.     

美联储如何制定货币政策?

编者按:不管是否情愿,我们已经身处金融全球化的潮流之中.远在美国的次级债危机不仅重创了号称成熟的资本市场--中国香港股市,就连受资本项目防火墙保护的中国A股市场也随之暴跌不止,这使我们感受到了金融全球化带来的风险全球化的"寒流".     

美联储货币政策走向何方？

今后美联储货币政策的不确定性,将进一步增大世界各国货币政策协调的不确定性和难度,发达国家是否能够与美国协调一致需要取决于各自的具体经济形势,而不是一味地与美国保持统一,新兴经济体国家则更倾向于依据形势的发展变化来调整符合本国国情的货币政策     

Birth of the Federal Reserve: Crisis in the womb

The outbreak of World War I shut the New York Stock Exchange for more than 4 months. The conventional explanation maintains that the closure prevented a collapse in stock prices that threatened a repetition of the Panic of 1907. This paper shows that the Wilson Administration encouraged the suspension of trading to pave the way for launching the Federal Reserve System, which was in the process of being born. Federal Reserve insiders considered an adequate stock of gold crucial to the success of the new monetary system. Closing the Exchange helped to forestall an outflow of gold. Central bankers can learn how crisis control is supposed to work from the 1914 experience.     

International mutual fund returns and Federal Reserve policy

This study examines the performance of international mutual fund indexes across alternative Federal Reserve monetary policy environments. The results suggest that the benefits touted by advocates of international diversification may be less than previous studies indicate. Specifically, during restrictive US monetary policy periods, international mutual fund indexes provide lower excess returns than domestic counterparts. Additionally, the correlations between international mutual funds and domestic mutual funds are higher during restrictive monetary policy periods. This evidence may represent a partial explanation for the home country bias exhibited by US-based individual and institutional investors.     

Federal Reserve Monetary Policy and Industry Stock Returns

Recent studies identify stock return patterns associated with changes in Federal Reserve monetary policy. We find that these return patterns prevail across sixteen industry stock indices. However, significant cross-industry variation exists as the apparel industry exhibits mean annual returns that are 50% higher under an expansive Fed policy than under a restrictive policy, while the same return difference for the oil industry is only 20%. This cross-industry variation suggests that monetary conditions may be used by investors to estimate different expected returns across industries. Furthermore, the findings support the view that monetary considerations should be considered in ex ante asset pricing models such as the CAPM.     

Inflationary bias of the Federal Reserve System: A bureaucratic perspective

The Federal Reserve System does not receive a budget from Congress, but instead, finances its operation from interest payments on its government security portfolio. This peculiar financing arrangement provides the foundation for a bureaucratic model of Federal Reserve official behavior. The empirical section tests the bureaucratic model by analysing the Fed's expenditure record since 1947 and its policy actions during periods of ‘constitutional’ revision.     

What Explains the Stock Market's Reaction to Federal Reserve Policy?

This paper analyzes the impact of changes in monetary policy on equity prices, with the objectives of both measuring the average reaction of the stock market and understanding the economic sources of that reaction. We find that, on average, a hypothetical unanticipated 25‐basis‐point cut in the Federal funds rate target is associated with about a 1% increase in broad stock indexes. Adapting a methodology due to Campbell and Ammer, we find that the effects of unanticipated monetary policy actions on expected excess returns account for the largest part of the response of stock prices.     

美联储降息的多米诺效应

次贷危机的阴影也许已经渐渐远离我们，但是，在“后次贷危机”时代，一个已经淡忘多年的经济学里的术语——降息，频繁地出现在人们的视野里。从2007年9月到今年3月，美联储的降息举措已经达到6次之多，联邦基金利率由原来的5．25％下降到最近的2．25％，下调幅度达到了57％。同时美联储也多次降低了贴现率，贴现率由原来的5．75％降到最近的2．5％。其频繁程度可见一斑。     

Deregulation,Correspondent Banking,and the Role of the Federal Reserve

Intrastate branching deregulation allowed correspondent banks to enter downstream retail deposit markets. Integrated correspondent banks may engage in vertical foreclosure, raising prices to downstream rivals or extracting valuable competitive information. The Federal Reserve would then tend to gain market share from private correspondent banks. Deregulation of restrictions on the formation of multibank holding companies, in contrast, allowed other correspondents to enter, increasing competition. We test these hypotheses using a panel data set of respondent account balances. We find that the Federal Reserve became a more important supplier of correspondent services following branching deregulation and that market power in the correspondent market declined following multibank holding company deregulation. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D43, G21, G28, L11.     

Alternative measures of the Federal Reserve Banks’ cost of equity capital

The Monetary Control Act of 1980 requires the Federal Reserve System to provide payment services to depository institutions through the 12 Federal Reserve Banks at prices that fully reflect the costs a private-sector provider would incur, including a cost of equity capital (COE). Although Fama and French [Fama, E.F., French, K.R., 1997. Industry costs of equity. Journal of Financial Economics 43, 153–193] conclude that COE estimates are “woefully” and “unavoidably” imprecise, the Reserve Banks require such an estimate every year. We examine several COE estimates based on the CAPM model and compare them using econometric and materiality criteria. Our results suggest that the benchmark CAPM model applied to a large peer group of competing firms provides a COE estimate that is not clearly improved upon by using a narrow peer group, introducing additional factors into the model, or taking account of additional firm-level data, such as leverage and line-of-business concentration. Thus, a standard implementation of the benchmark CAPM model provides a reasonable COE estimate, which is needed to impute costs and set prices for the Reserve Banks’ payments business.     

A model of the Federal Reserve Act under the international gold standard system

Freeman (Am. Econom. Rev. 86 (1996a) 1126) shows that an elastic money supply enhances the efficiency of monetary equilibrium by clearing default-free debts at par value in the domestic credit market. This research adds a foreign exchange market to Freeman's model and extends his analysis into a two-country model, in which the arrival rates of agents are not equal between the two countries. In this model, an elastic money supply in the foreign exchange market to clear the exchange of fiat monies at gold standard parity, accompanied by an elastic money supply in the domestic credit market, could improve the efficiency of monetary equilibrium.     

The reaction of international stock markets to Federal Reserve policy

This paper investigates how changes in Federal Reserve policy impact international stock returns, with the three objectives of measuring the reaction of international stock markets, understanding the transmission channels of that reaction, and explaining the economic sources of that reaction. We find that unanticipated Federal Reserve policy actions exert a significant and robust influence on international stock prices. However, the influence of unanticipated monetary policy actions is not strong enough to change the correlation structure of international equity returns. We also find that international stock return co-movements play an important role in the transmission of monetary policy. Finally, the variance decomposition analysis indicates that the effects of monetary policy surprises on future excess returns or dividend returns account for the largest portion of the equity price response.     

再析美国金融危机前的利率政策

全球金融危机与美国货币政策的变化密不可分,从低利率货币信贷扩张的流动性过剩到高利率的流动性紧缩,使宏观经济产生剧烈波动,前期低利率带来过剩的流动性,后期利率的提高造成巨量房地产泡沫的破灭。让美联储无视资产泡沫的原因是美联储货币政策一贯秉持的"泰勒规则"指导原则没有纳入资产价格因子,致使美联储货币政策调控失误。     

An examination of bank behavior around Federal Reserve stress tests

Examining bank behavior around Federal Reserve stress tests, we find that stress test banks increase capital ratios at the starting point for annual stress testing significantly more than non-stress test banks. These trends are completely reversed (and economically significant) in the other quarters. Further, the differences between stress test and non-stress test banks seen in stress test years do not occur in 2010, when the Fed did not conduct a stress test. Results show that, as they enter the stress test, stress test banks lower dividends significantly more than non-stress test banks. Finally, stress test banks spend significantly more on lobbying than non-stress test banks. The results suggest that stress test banks may be managing financial performance and investing in political spending to improve their chances of passing stress tests.     

Bank loan supply responses to Federal Reserve emergency liquidity facilities

The Federal Reserve injected unprecedented liquidity into banks during the recent crisis through the discount window and Term Auction Facility. We examine the use and effectiveness of these facilities. We find that recipient banks increased their lending overall, both short- and long-term, and in most loan categories. The facilities resulted in enhanced lending at expanding banks and reduced declines at contracting banks. Small banks increased small business lending and large banks increased large business lending. There were no significant changes in loan quality or loan contract terms by either large or small banks.