Bank deposit insurance and business cycles: controlling the volatility of risk-based premiums

Proposals to make deposit insurance risk-based need to consider how premiums would fluctuate over the business cycle. This paper derives a new deposit insurance contract that has the following three features: 1) it is fairly priced in the sense that the insurer conveys no subsidy to the bank; 2) the insurance rate can be made as stable as desired by lengthening the "average" maturity of the contract; 3) the rate can be frequently updated as new information regarding the bank's financial condition is obtained. These characteristics are achieved with a contract that is a combination of several long-term ones whose contract intervals partially overlap. Relative to a standard, short-term contract, this "moving average" contract reduces the volatility of a bank's insurance rates and avoids payment of excessively high premiums during times of financial distress. ; Estimates of fair insurance rates under such a contract are presented for 42 banks based on data over the period 1987 to 1996. While lengthening the average maturity of the contract reduces the volatility of insurance rates, it also increases the average level of rates since the insurer requires a greater premium for systemic risk. The paper also finds that the distribution of fair insurance rates across banks is skewed, with most banks paying relatively low rates and a small minority of banks paying much higher ones.Risk management ; Deposit insurance

Inflation expectations, real rates, and risk premia: evidence from inflation swaps

This paper develops a model of the term structures of nominal and real interest rates driven by state variables representing the short-term real interest rate, expected inflation, inflation’s central tendency, and four volatility factors that follow GARCH processes. We derive analytical solutions for nominal bond yields, yields on inflation-indexed bonds that have an indexation lag, and the term structure of expected inflation. Unlike prior studies, the model’s parameters are estimated using data on inflation swap rates, as well as nominal yields and survey forecasts of inflation. The volatility state variables fully determine bonds’ time-varying risk premia and allow for stochastic volatility and correlation between bond yields, yet they have small effects on the cross section of nominal yields. Allowing for time-varying volatility is particularly important for real interest rate and expected inflation processes, but long-horizon real and inflation risk premia are relatively stable. Comparing our model prices of inflation-indexed bonds to those of Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) suggests that TIPS were significantly underpriced prior to 2004 and again during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.Inflation (Finance) ; Interest rates ; Asset pricing

Estimating real and nominal term structures using Treasury yields, inflation, inflation forecasts, and inflation swap rates

This paper develops and estimates an equilibrium model of the term structures of nominal and real interest rates. The term structures are driven by state variables that include the short term real interest rate, expected inflation, a factor that models the changing level to which inflation is expected to revert, as well as four volatility factors that follow GARCH processes. We derive analytical solutions for the prices of nominal bonds, inflation-indexed bonds that have an indexation lag, the term structure of expected inflation, and inflation swap rates. The model parameters are estimated using data on nominal Treasury yields, survey forecasts of inflation, and inflation swap rates. We find that allowing for GARCH effects is particularly important for real interest rate and expected inflation processes, but that long–horizon real and inflation risk premia are relatively stable. Comparing our model prices of inflation-indexed bonds to those of Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) suggests that TIPS were underpriced prior to 2004 but subsequently were valued fairly. We find that unexpected increases in both short run and longer run inflation implied by our model have a negative impact on stock market returns.Interest rates ; Inflation (Finance) ; Asset pricing