The time-varying relationship between credit spreads and employment growth

After the global financial crisis, several central banks introduced unconventional monetary policies, such as quantitative easing (QE). If QE increases asset prices, but does not boost the real economy to the same extent, the relationship between credit spreads and employment growth will weaken. This study investigates this issue for the U.S. in a moving-windows framework. Our results suggest that the link between credit spreads and employment growth is lower during bubbles and recessions. We also find that the relationship weakened after the Fed introduced QE.     

FUTURES MARKETS AND BUBBLE FORMATION IN EXPERIMENTAL ASSET MARKETS*

Abstract. We construct asset markets of the type studied in Smith et al. (1988) , in which price bubbles and crashes are widely observed. In addition to a spot market, there are futures markets in operation, one maturing at the beginning of each period of the life of the asset. We find that when futures markets are present, bubbles do not occur in the spot markets. The futures markets seem to reduce the speculation and the decision errors that appear to give rise to price bubbles in experimental asset markets.     

资产价格泡沫与货币政策应对——事先行动还是事后反应

资产价格泡沫的产生原因是多方面的,早期的研究更多地认为资产泡沫来自于投资者的非理性因素,但是随着金融自由化进程的推进,与经济金融发展水平不相适应的金融自由化也成为资产泡沫产生的一个重要原因。而对于资产价格泡沫的货币政策应对一直存在争议,一些学者主张货币政策应该忽略资产价格,而另一些学者则主张货币政策应该对资产价格作出反应。本文基于后一种观点,来探讨当预期资产价格将出现泡沫时,货币政策是该事先行动还是事后反应,为此,本文引入产出跨期配置的理论,来阐述货币政策应对资产价格泡沫的决策模型。     

Switching bubbles: From Outside to Inside Bubbles

The United States has recently experienced two asset price bubbles: the Dot-Com and the Housing Bubbles. These bubbles had very different effects on investment and debt of manufacturing firms. In this paper I develop a framework to understand the differential effect of two types of rational bubbles. I distinguish between (i) Outside Bubbles, which I define as savers purchasing and selling costless assets not-attached to inputs of production and (ii) Inside Bubbles, which I define as savers buying an input of production (e.g., land or houses) only as a store of value. The model is an OLG economy with savers and entrepreneurs. Savers save to consume when they are old. Entrepreneurs can borrow to invest but they face a collateral constraint. In this environment, rational bubbles can emerge. I show that the size of an Inside Bubble is larger. I also find that when the economy switches from an Outside to an Inside Bubble, manufacturing (or non-housing) investment and debt is lower, consistent with the U.S. experience. Finally, I show that even though steady-state consumption is higher with an Outside Bubble, a social planner would prefer an Inside Bubble when the productivity of entrepreneurs is low.     

What determines simultaneous asset bubbles? An empirical analysis

The recent global financial crisis demonstrated that the simultaneous collapse of asset bubbles in different countries is a major challenge for monetary policy. In order to evaluate determinants of these simultaneous asset bubbles, we detect rational asset bubbles in corporate equity and real estate markets worldwide using forward recursive right-sided ADF tests. Then we create dummy variables for simultaneous asset bubbles and analyse potential determinants using gravity models and spatial economics. Our empirical analysis suggests that simultaneous asset bubbles depend positively upon potential asset demand, capital account openness, monetary conditions, cultural similarities and negatively upon informational frictions and exchange rate flexibility. These findings imply that monetary policy can impede the probability of simultaneous asset bubbles by ensuring sound monetary conditions and choosing a flexible exchange regime.     

Impact of initial seeds on the growth of biotechnology startups: evidence from the U.S. and Japan

ABSTRACT

We assess the impact of initial seeds on the long-run growth of biotechnology startups, including the response of the capital market, in the U.S. and Japan. For this purpose, we collected a comprehensive dataset of the matched sample of listed firms from their foundations to the post-IPO period. We find that the quality of initial seeds predicts significantly both the level and the growth rate of the patent stock as well as those of the asset size of the U.S. startups, even controlling for their alliances and acquisitions, while it predicts only the level of the patent stock for the Japanese startups. Furthermore, the asset growth and the patent stock growth in turn account for the market value performances of the U.S. firms much more significantly than those of the Japanese firms. On the other hand, there are only small differences with respect to the time to IPO and the asset growth through the IPO. These results suggest that higher quality of initial seeds significantly enhanced long-run growth of biotechnology startups in the U.S. but not in Japan, and that the differences in fertility of the initial seeds and in efficiency of the capital market could significantly explain the difference.     

Determinants of stock price bubbles

In this paper we propose a cross-sectional model of the determinants of asset price bubbles. Using 589 firms listed on the NYSE, we find conclusive evidence that trading volume and share price volatility have statistically significant effects on asset price bubbles. However, evidence from sector-based stocks is mixed. We find that for firms belonging to electricity, energy, financial, and banking sectors, and for the smallest size firms, trading volume has a statistically significant and positive effect on bubbles. We do not discover any robust evidence of a statistically significant effect of share price volatility on bubbles at the sector-level.     

The more contagion effect on emerging markets: The evidence of DCC-GARCH model

The paper aims to test the existence of financial contagion between foreign exchange markets of several emerging and developed countries during the U.S. subprime crisis. As a result of DCC-GARCH analysis, we find the evidence of contagion during U.S. subprime crisis for most of the developed and emerging countries. Another finding is that emerging markets seem to be the most influenced by the contagion effects during U.S. subprime crisis. Since financial contagion is important for monetary policy, risk measurement, asset pricing and portfolio allocation, the findings of paper may be interest of policy makers, investors and portfolio managers.     

Asset Bubbles,Unemployment, and a Financial Crisis

A tractable growth model with asset bubbles is presented to demonstrate that a financial crisis caused by a bubble bursting increases unemployment rates. A bubbly asset, which is intrinsically useless, has a positive market value because purchasing the asset is a sole saving method for agents who draw insufficiently low productivity, whereas selling the asset is a fund-raising method for agents who draw high productivity to initiate an investment project. The presence of asset bubbles corrects allocative inefficiency regarding production resources, relocating investment resources from low-productivity agents to high-productivity agents. Accordingly, the presence of asset bubbles can promote capital accumulation. As capital accumulates and output increases, the number of vacant positions increases because firms acquire more funds to cover a search cost. As a result, firms are incentivized to increase employment. However, extrinsic uncertainty may burst asset bubbles and cause a self-fulfilling financial crisis, which is followed by increased unemployment.     

中国股市的理性泡沫

传统理论通常把证券市场的泡沫与投资者的非理性行为混为一谈。近期的研究却表明在一个完全理性的市场中 ,泡沫依然可以出现。本文首先对我国证券市场存在理性泡沫的可能性提出多种理论解释 ,认为下列原因导致了我国证券市场泡沫的存在 :( 1 )上市审批制 ;( 2 )可供投资的证券种类少 ;( 3 )政府的托市行为 ;( 4)卖空机制的缺乏 ;( 5)套利机制缺乏有效性 ;( 6)上市公司很少分红 ,投资者买卖股票只是为了获得买卖差价。其次 ,我们通过分析所得的结果 ,提出应对理性泡沫的政策措施。     

Price Bubbles in Laboratory Asset Markets with Constant Fundamental Values

We construct asset markets that are similar to those studied by Smith, Suchanek and Williams (Econometrica. 56, 1119–1151) in which bubbles and crashes tended to occur. The main difference between the markets studied here and those studied by Smith et al. is that in the markets studied here, the fundamental value of the asset is constant over the entire life of the asset. In four of the eight sessions reported here, we observe bubbles, which are prices considerably higher than fundamental values. The data suggest that the frequent payment of dividends is a major cause of bubble formation. The property that the fundamental value remains constant over the course of the trading horizon is not sufficient to eliminate the possibility of a bubble.     

Safe havens in the face of Presidential election uncertainty: A comparison between Bitcoin,oil and precious metals

Even though the empirical literature on safe haven properties of different assets with respect to financial risks is increasing, their abilities to safeguard against political risks has not been the subject of large empirical investigations. This paper uses an Empirical Mode Decomposition-based approach to look into the time-varying role of different assets (in particular, oil, precious metals and Bitcoin) as a safe haven against U.S. stocks in times of heightened uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Our results suggest that oil can act as an effective safe haven against political risk exposure; but such property varies over time. The abilities of gold and silver to provide positive returns during downturns have been also documented in the medium-and the long-term. Bitcoin also serves as a safe haven against U.S. stock losses but in the short-term. These findings provide useful and relevant information to investors to help ensure better asset allocation in an uncertain environment.     

What are the effects of fiscal policy on asset markets?

We investigate the link between fiscal policy shocks and asset markets. Our results show that spending shocks have: a positive and persistent effect on GDP in the U.S. and in the U.K., while for Germany and Italy, such impact is temporary; a positive and persistent effect on housing prices; a negative effect on stock prices; and mixed effects on the price level. A VAR counter-factual exercise suggests that fiscal shocks play a minor role in the asset markets of the U.S. and Germany, and substantially increase the variability of housing and stock prices in the U.K., while government revenue shocks have increased volatility in Italy.     

Double Bubbles in Assets Markets With Multiple Generations

We construct an asset market in a finite horizon overlapping-generations environment. Subjects are tested for comprehension of their fundamental value exchange environment and then reminded during each of 25 periods of the environment's declining new value. We observe price bubbles forming when new generations enter the market with additional liquidity and bursting as old generations exit the market and withdrawing cash. The entry and exit of traders in the market creates an M shaped double bubble price path over the life of the traded asset. This finding is significant in documenting that bubbles can reoccur within one extended trading horizon and, consistent with previous cross-subject comparisons, shows how fluctuations in market liquidity influence price paths. We also find that trading experience leads to price expectations that incorporate fundamental value.     

Trend shocks and the countercyclical U.S. current account

From 1960 to 2009, the U.S. current account balance has tended to decline during expansions and improve in recessions. We argue that shocks to the trend growth rate of productivity can help explain the countercyclical U.S. current account. Our framework is a two‐country, two‐good business cycle model in which international asset trade is limited to a single, non‐contingent bond. We identify trend and transitory shocks to U.S. productivity using generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. The specification that best matches the data assigns a large role to trend shocks. The estimated model also captures key facts regarding international co‐movement.     

Uniqueness of asset prices in an exchange economy with unbounded utility

Summary. This paper studies conditions under which the price of an asset is uniquely determined by its fundamental value – i.e., no bubbles can arise – in Lucas-type asset pricing models with unbounded utility. After discussing Gilles and LeRoy's (1992) example, we construct an example of a two-period, representative agent economy to demonstrate that bubbles can arise in a standard model if utility is unbounded below, in which case the stochastic Euler equation may be violated. In an infinite horizon framework, we show that bubbles cannot arise if the optimal sequence of asset holdings can be lowered uniformly without incurring an infinite utility loss. Using this result, we develop conditions for the nonexistence of bubbles. The conditions depend exclusively on the asymptotic behavior of marginal utility at zero and infinity. They are satisfied by many unbounded utility functions, including the entire CRRA (constant relative risk aversion) class. The Appendix provides a complete market version of our two-period example. Received: January 22, 1996; revised version: February 18, 1997     

America’s flawed paradigm: macroeconomic causes of the financial crisis and great recession

This paper traces the roots of the financial crisis and Great Recession to a flawed U.S. macroeconomic paradigm that was adopted around 1980 with the triumph of neoliberal economics. One flaw concerns the growth model. A second flaw concerns the model of global economic engagement that created a triple economic hemorrhage of spending on imports, manufacturing job losses, and off-shoring of investment. The new growth model hollowed out the economy and relied on growing debt and asset price inflation. As the process deepened the economy needed ever larger bubbles to grow. Financial deregulation and excess kept the model going longer than expected, but it meant the economy experienced a financial crash and deeper collapse when the contradictions finally surfaced. The United States needs a new economic paradigm and a new growth model, but as yet this challenge has received little attention from policymakers or economists.     

Bubbles and capital flows

This paper presents a stylized model of international trade and asset price bubbles. Its central insight is that bubbles tend to appear and expand in countries where productivity is low relative to the rest of the world. These bubbles absorb local savings, eliminating inefficient investments and liberating resources that are in part used to invest in high-productivity countries. Through this channel, bubbles act as a substitute for international capital flows, improving the international allocation of investment and reducing rate-of-return differentials across countries. This view of asset price bubbles could eventually provide a simple account of some real world phenomena that have been difficult to model before, such as the recurrence and depth of financial crises or their puzzling tendency to propagate across countries.     

Asset bubbles in an overlapping generations model with endogenous labor supply

This paper examines the effects of asset bubbles in an overlapping generations model with endogenous labor supply. We show analytically that asset bubbles can lead to an expansion in steady-state capital, investment, employment and output under certain conditions.     

预算软约束与资产价格理性泡沫

文章将预算软约束引入资产价格理性泡沫的分析之中,在给出一个预算软约束情形下资产均衡价格决定模型的基础上,得出了资产价格理性泡沫的表达式.模型分析表明,当存在预算软约束时风险资产的理性泡沫为正;同时,风险资产对应企业面临的预算软约束越大,该风险资产价格中的理性泡沫越大.