CONSERVED ENERGY SUPPLY CURVES FOR U.S. BUILDINGS

Comparison of nine conservation supply curves for electricity shows that fully implementing a series of energy efficiency measures will result in annual saving of 734 billion kWh (BkWh). This is 45 percent of 1989 U.S. building sector electricity use of 1627 BkWh and represents a $29 billion saving. When translated to units of conserved carbon dioxide (CC CO₂), this annual saving is 514 megatonnes, which is 10 percent of the total 1989 U.S. carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from all sources. Implementing additional fuel efficiency measures would result in further potential saving of 5·2 quads of fuel (natural gas and oil) per year, or another 300 megatonnes of CO₂, at a net savings of $20 billion. Fuel switching (replacing electric resistance heat with on-site natural gas combustion) would produce annual saving of another 74 megatonnes of CO₂ at a net saving of $6·8 billion. Thus, total CO₂ saving from these combined efficiency measures are 890 megatonnes at a net saving of $56 billion per year.     

Economic Policy and the Great Depression in a Small Open Economy

We use a standard New Keynesian model of a small open economy, extended to include a government sector, to investigate the Great Depression in Australia. A calibrated model with a fixed exchange rate regime, similar to the gold standard, does well in replicating the dynamics of output during the interwar period. We then ask to what extent shocks to the economy would have been moderated by adopting modern‐day policies. We find that if policymakers had adopted a flexible exchange rate with a Taylor rule policy that output fluctuations during the Great Depression would have been moderated by up to 25%. Changes in government fiscal policy would also have moderated output fluctuations, but by a slightly smaller amount. Overall, we find that improved policy could have reduced output fluctuations by almost 50%.     

Are Analysts’ Recommendations Informative? Intraday Evidence on the Impact of Time Stamp Delays

We demonstrate that time stamps reported in I/B/E/S for analysts’ recommendations released during trading hours are systematically delayed. Using newswire‐reported time stamps, we find 30‐minute returns of 1.83% (?2.10%) for upgrades (downgrades), but for this subset of recommendations we find corresponding returns of ?0.07% (?0.09%) using I/B/E/S‐reported time stamps. We also examine the information content of recommendations relative to management guidance and earnings announcements. Our evidence suggests that analysts’ recommendations are the most important information disclosure channel examined.     

Explaining Monetary Spillovers: The Matrix Reloaded

This paper relies on a high-frequency identification approach to provide new insights into monetary policy spillovers by major central banks. Our long and broad sample (1999–2019, from four major economies to 47 advanced and emerging market economies) allows us to accurately identify the properties of spillovers and to shed light on different transmission channels. We find that spillovers by the Fed to foreign interest rates are economically large, but more surprisingly, document an intensification of spillovers by the European Central Bank over time. Spillovers are more significant to bond yields in advanced economies than they are to those in emerging markets. Differentiating across key spillover channels, we find strongest support for a financial links channel, but weaker evidence for the macroeconomic links channel and foreign exchange regime channel.     

Retail Financial Innovation and Stock Market Dynamics: The Case of Target Date Funds

Target date funds (TDFs) are designed to provide unsophisticated or inattentive investors with age-appropriate exposures to different asset classes like stocks and bonds. The rise of TDFs has moved a significant share of retirement investors into macrocontrarian strategies that sell stocks after relatively good stock market performance. This rebalancing drives contrarian flows across equity mutual funds held by TDFs, stabilizing their funding, and reduces stock returns for stocks disproportionately held by these funds when stock market returns are relatively high. Continued growth in TDFs and similar investment products may dampen stock market volatility and increase the transmission of shocks across asset classes.