The rise and fall of a policy rule: monetarism at the St. Louis Fed, 1968-1986

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis played an important and highly visible role in the development and advocacy of stabilization policy based on the targeting of monetary aggregates. Research conducted at the St. Louis Bank extended earlier monetarist analysis that had focused on the role of money in explaining economic activity in the long run. Their success in finding apparently robust, stable relationships in both long- and short-run data led monetarists to apply long-run propositions to short-run policy questions, effectively competing with alternative views of the time. When the short-run correlation between money and economic activity went astray in the early 1980s, however, the efficacy of the monetarist rule and appeals for targeting monetary aggregates to achieve economic stabilization quickly lost credibility. This article traces the evolution of monetary policy research at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis as it moved from the identification of long-run relationships between money and economic activity toward short-run policy analysis. The authors show how monetarists were lulled into advocating a short-run stabilization policy and argue that this experience councils against overconfidence in our ability to identify infallible rules for conducting short-run stabilization policy in general.Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis ; Research and development

Reliance, composition, and inflation

In this article Joydeep Bhattacharya and Joseph Haslag explore the effect of fiscal policy actions on long-run prices and the inflation rate. They study a model economy in which the central bank is not independent. Indeed, the government explicitly relies on the central bank for a predetermined amount of its revenue. Despite the absence of independence, the central bank does unilaterally control the composition of government paper. Bhattacharya and Haslag show that changes in reliance and composition have long-run impacts on prices and inflation. They conduct two separate policy experiments that suggest how a subservient central bank can retain substantial control over the inflation rate and still meet its revenue requirements set by the government.

Bank risk taking and liquidity creation following regulatory interventions and capital support

During times of bank distress, authorities often engage in regulatory interventions and provide capital support to reduce bank risk taking. An unintended effect of such actions may be a reduction in bank liquidity creation, with possible adverse consequences for the economy as a whole. This paper tests hypotheses regarding the effects of regulatory interventions and capital support on bank risk taking and liquidity creation using a unique dataset over the period 1999-2009. We find that both types of actions are generally associated with statistically significant reductions in risk taking and liquidity creation in the short run and long run. While the effects of regulatory interventions are also economically significant, the effects of capital support are only economically significant in the long run. Thus, both types of actions have important intended and unintended consequences with implications for policymakers.risk taking;liquidity creation;bank distress;regulatory interventions;capital support

Bank and sovereign debt risk connection : [draft december 2012]

Euro area data show a positive connection between sovereign and bank risk, which increases with banks’ and sovereign long run fragility. We build a macro model with banks subject to incentive problems and liquidity risk (in the form of liquidity based banks’ runs) which provides a link between endogenous bank capital and macro and policy risk. Our banks also invest in risky government bonds used as capital buffer to self-insure against liquidity risk. The model can replicate the positive connection between sovereign and bank risk observed in the data. Central bank liquidity policy, through full allotment policy, is successful in stabilizing the spiraling feedback loops between bank and sovereign risk

Evolutionary Forces in a Banking System with Speculation and System Risk

For an N players coordination games, Tanaka (2000) proved that the notion of N/2 stability defined by Schaffer (1988) is a necessary and sufficient condition for long run equilibrium in an evolutionary process with mutations (in the sense of Kandori, et. al. (1993)). We argue that the critical number in Schaffer's stability is not unique in every application, but can vary with variables determined before the coordination games. In our specific model, these variables are the portfolio choices of the banks. We derived a Z* stability condition for the long run equilibrium for the banking system, in which there is no speculative bank run. This critical number of players is a function of the size for risky investment, and varies with total risky investments when there are more than two banks. We use this framework to analyze the effect of speculative behavior on banks' risk taking and the phenomenon of system risk, calculating the probability when more than one bank fail together (system risk). Our specific results include: first, we propose a Z* stability condition, which is proved to be a necessary and sufficient condition for such a long run equilibrium in the sense of KMR. This critical number of Z* is a function of the total risky investment in the banking system. In the case with two banks, this value could vary across banks. Second, speculative behaviors do not frustrate single bank's risky taking, but rather, encourage the bank to maintain a high enough level of risky investment, to keep the system stay in the equilibrium of no run. This indicates that although the speculative run equilibrium will be eliminated in the long run, the probability of fundamental run will increase with the mere possibility of speculative behavior. It is well known that sufficiently large exogenous shocks can cause a crisis. For example, Allen and Gale (1998) describe a model in which financial crises are caused by exogenous asset-return shocks. Following a large (negative) shock to asset returns, banks are unable to meet their commitments and are forced to default and liquidate assets. Third, the single bank case does not necessarily apply to the case with multiple banks. Symmetric banks can take different level of risks, which induces a different in the probability of bank failures. The probability of joint failures increases, compare to the case without speculation, but the individual probability of bank failures do not necessarily increase.speculative run, evolution process, random mutations, portfolio management, system risk, equilibrium selection, long run stability

The Impacts of "Shock Therapy" under a Banking Crisis: Experiences from Three Large Bank Failures in Japan (Subsequently published in "Japanese Economic Review" Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jan. 2006), pp.232-246. )

A bank failure can have various adverse consequences for the clients. The adverse impacts might, however, differ depending on who takes over the operation of the failed banks. In this paper, we show that how to manage the new banks is important in mitigating the short-run and long-run consequences of bank failures. In the analysis, we focus on clients of three large failed Japanese banks - Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, the Long-term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB), and the Nippon Credit Bank. We examine when the number of bankruptcies increased and how the market valuation changed for the client firms after the banks' operations were taken over by new banks. As for the clients of LTCB, there were dramatic increases of bankruptcies in the short-run but the surviving clients showed significant recovery of their stock prices. In contrast, as for the clients of the other two banks, there was neither dramatic increase of bankruptcies nor significant recovery of their stock prices. The result implies that "shock therapy" or "soft budget constraints" had dramatically different consequences in solving bad loan problems in Japan.

Run-prone banking and asset markets

I analyze the role that asset markets play in the performance and stability of the run-prone banking sector. Banks insure consumers against privately observed liquidity shocks. Asset market investments insure consumers against losses from bank runs. If the probability of a run is small, then banks specialize fully into the provision of liquidity insurance: They provide a higher degree of liquidity insurance when compared to the economy with banks alone. If the probability of a run is high, consumers prefer to invest solely through the asset market. Insurance against runs provided by the market investment reduces consumers' incentives to run. Increased provision of liquidity insurance by banks has the opposite effect. I derive conditions under which the latter effect dominates and the probability of a run is higher than with banks alone. JEL Classification: E44, G21asset markets, Bank runs, financial stability, liquidity, Mechanism Design

Interest Rate Pass-Through to Macroeconomic Variables: The Nigerian Experience

The effectiveness of monetary policy depends on the adjustment response of Central Banks short-term interest rate on the real interest rates charged by commercial banks and ultimately on macroeconomic indicators of investment and consumption in the economy. Thus, the extent of interest rate pass-through largely depends on how effective the process of financial intermediation works and to what extent individual bank characteristics influence or hinder a perfect adjustment of product rates based on market conditions. The study examines the speed and completeness of pass-through from policy rates to retail bank rates and the effectiveness of monetary policy stance in influencing macroeconomic policy targets using a co-integration analysis based on Johansen and Juselius maximum likelihood and Engle-Granger two step procedures for the period 1970–2011. The VAR based Error Correction Model (ECM) and the Mean Adjustment Lag (MAL) was used to determine the short run estimates and asymmetric behaviour respectively. The study found an evidence of downward stickiness both in the short-run and long-run policy pass-through to the retail bank rates. In order to ensure robustness of the result, the Impulse Response Function (IRF) and Variance Decomposition (VD) analysis were conducted and similar slow and sluggish pass-through was obtained. The study as well, found pass-through from policy rate to macroeconomic variables to exhibit extremely rigid immediate responses

ELA, Promissory Notes and All That: The Fiscal Costs of Anglo Irish Bank

This is a briefing paper the author distributed to the Irish parliamentary committee responsible for finance and public expenditure. It describes the balance sheet of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, the organisation that was formed by combining Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Buildings Society. The nature of the long-run cost to the Irish state of taking over the liabilities of these institutions is outlined and suggestions are made for reducing these costs.Banking Crises, Anglo Irish Bank, Emergency Liquidity Assistance, European Central Bank

The transparency of the banking industry and the efficiency of information-based bank runs

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the transparency of banks and the fragility of the banking system. We show that information-based bank runs may be inefficient because the deposit con-tract designed to provide liquidity induces depositors to have excessive incentives to withdraw. An im-provement in transparency of a bank may reduce depositor welfare through increasing the chance of an inefficient contagious bank run on other banks. A deposit insurance system in which some depositors are fully insured and the others are partially insured can ameliorate this inefficiency. Under such a system, bank runs can serve as an efficient mechanism for disciplining banks. We also consider bank managers’ control over the timing of information disclosure, and find that they may lack the incentive to reveal in-formation about their banks.bank run; contagion; transparency; market discipline; deposit insurance