Volatility and unpredictability

Interest rates

The baby boom, the housing market and the stock market

Housing ; Stock exchanges ; Population

Exchange Rate Regime Credibility, the Agency Cost of Capital and Devaluation

When a country abandons a fixed, or target zone exchange regime it usually claims that the regime was "fundamentally" sound but that it was undermined by pernicious speculation. The validity of the claim is impossible to assess using only observable data-there always exists a future path of current account surpluses that would make the regime sound, and speculators' (investors'?) motives are unobservable. This paper analyzes the crucial role of imperfect credibility in a currency crisis with a stochastic dynamic rational expectations regime switch model. The exchange regime is sound, e.g., a currency board-the only market failure is that the Central Bank cannot make a credible commitment to maintain the regime. The paper has two innovations: (1) It specifies the cost of imperfect credibility, and (2) It quantifies the cost of imperfect credibility. Imperfect credibility generates small (but costly) average interest rate differentials. Imperfect credibility cannot generate large interest differentials, but a surprisingly small "fundamental" currency overvaluation added to the basic specification generates large interest rate differentials. The paper's main result- that a lack of credibility cannot generate large interest rate differentials in a sound regime-is robust. The model in the paper is stylized, but the results are rich. The policy maker (Central Bank) and investors optimize. Investors fear devaluation and the Bank cannot make a credible commitment to allay their fears. Investors demand an agency currency premium. There is no pernicious speculation-the premium fairly prices the country's assets but it increases the country's cost of capital. The Bank abandons the regime when the expected present value of the agency cost of capital outweighs the expected present value of the benefit from remaining in the regime. The model generates multiple rational expectations equilibria and a variety of patterns linking the exchange rate to the interest rate differential. I parameterized the model using estimates of the exchange rate process for Hong Kong. The model generated agency currency premiums average ½%. The model generated interest rate differentials are consistent with the interest differentials in Hong Kong before the Asian financial crisis in July of 1997. After July 1997 a lack of credibility is not sufficient to explain the observed interest rate differentials of 4-6%.balance of payments crisis, credibility, multiple equilibria

Dollarization: An Irreversible Decision

If dollarization is a credible commitment to maintain a fixed exchange rate, then it is an irreversible decision. This paper explicitly models the unique feature -- irreversibility -- of a dollarization policy. In addition, it is the first paper to recognize that if a dollarization is a potential exchange rate regime choice, then the equilibrium is a mixed strategy equilibrium. The case of Argentina's possible dollarization is considered. I compute Nash equilibria and the transition probabilities that a country will move from a currency board regime to dollarizing, or floating, in one year, or two years, out to seven years. I model shocks to the exchange rate as a jump-diffusion process. The jumps represent large "asymmetric" shocks to the exchange rate -- such as Brazil's 1999 devaluation. The probability of dollarization is inversely related to the jump probability.

Gestalt money

Money supply

Valuing the Futures Market Clearinghouse's Default Exposure During the 1987 Crash

Futures market clearinghouses are intermediaries that make large volume trading between anonymous parties feasible. During the October 1987 market crash rumors spread that a major clearinghouse might fail. This paper presents estimates of three measures of the default exposure on the popular S&P500 futures contract traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. We estimate the traditional summary statistic for risk exposure: the tail probabilities that the change in the futures price exceeds the margin. And we estimate two economic measures of the risk--the expected value of the payoffs in the tails and expected value of the payoffs in the tails conditional on landing in the tail. The economic measures of risk reveal exposure from low probability large payoff events--like a crash--that does not show up tail probabilities. The tail probabilities only capture the likelihood of a crash, not the expected loss. The estimated measures of risk follow directly from estimates of the conditional distribution of futures price changes. We infer a jump-diffusion process and a log-normal rocess from the prices of traded options and we estimate a jump-diffusion process from time-series data on futures prices. After the crash the forward-looking jump-diffusion model inferred from traded options reflects the fears of another crash voiced by market participants. The model indicates another jump is unlikely, but if it occurred it would be big and negative. The tail probabilities are small, less than 2%. But, the day after the crash the model estimates the expected value of payoffs in the tails conditional on landing in the tail equals of 55% of the S&P500 futures price. According to this estimate roughly $10.5 billion in liquid reserves would be required to weather another crash. On October 20 the Federal Reserve announced it stood ready to supply the necessary liquidity.