Economic slowdown: demand or supply induced?

Economic indicators ; Business cycles

Social Security private accounts: a risky proposition?

In the ongoing debate over Social Security, private accounts have been recommended as one part of the resolution of the funding difficulties the system faces in coming years. This article discusses what private accounts can and cannot do for individuals who choose to use them and for future Social Security deficits. ; Under current proposals, private accounts would give account holders personal ownership rights and could be willed to heirs at death. Most proposals would limit the range of assets that can be held but would permit account owners to determine their investments based on personal risk preferences. To the extent that financial asset returns can be higher than returns on Social Security, private accounts can be more worthwhile for those with a longer time until retirement because any difference in returns can compound over a longer period. ; Private accounts carry the risks inherent in holding financial assets, but Social Security carries a real risk of lower benefits in the future. Holders of private accounts would be trading one type of risk for another. ; The creation of private accounts can reduce Social Security’s future problems if the reductions in benefits in exchange for deposits in private accounts reflect the initial deposit plus interest earned.>Social security

Rules and discretion in monetary policy

Monetary policy ; Velocity of money

Interest rates and economic announcements

Interest rates

Bank failures in banking panics: Risky banks or road kill?

Are banks that fail in banking panics the riskiest ones prior to the panics? The free banking era in the United States provides useful data to examine this question because the assets held by the banks were traded at the New York Stock Exchange. The authors estimate the ex ante riskiness of a bank’s portfolio by examining the portfolio relative to mean-variance frontiers and by examining the bank's leverage and notes relative to assets. The authors find that the ex ante riskiness of a bank’s portfolio helps predict which banks fail and the extent of noteholders’ losses in the event of failure.Risk ; Debt ; Bank supervision ; Bank failures

Returns to investors in stocks in new industries

We examine the returns to investors in publicly traded stock in new industries. We examine data from the United States on sellers of own-brand personal computers, airlines and airplane manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, railroads, and telegraphs. We find that a relatively small number of companies generate outstanding returns and many firms fail. Firms in new industries typically have high volatility of individual stocks' returns. Compared with indexes for the same period, expected returns of firms are higher for two industries, lower for one industry and roughly the same for two industries. Portfolios of firms in new industries generally have lower Sharpe ratios than the overall market.Investments

Why do banks promise to pay par on demand?

We survey the theories of why banks promise to pay par on demand and examine evidence about the conditions under which banks have promised to pay the par value of deposits and banknotes on demand when holding only fractional reserves. The theoretical literature can be broadly divided into four strands: liquidity provision, asymmetric information, legal restrictions, and a medium of exchange. We assume that it is not zero cost to make a promise to redeem a liability at par value on demand. If so, then the conditions in the theories that result in par redemption are possible explanations of why banks promise to pay par on demand. If the explanation based on customers’ demand for liquidity is correct, payment of deposits at par will be promised when banks hold assets that are illiquid in the short run. If the asymmetric-information explanation based on the difficulty of valuing assets is correct, the marketability of banks’ assets determines whether banks promise to pay par. If the legal restrictions explanation of par redemption is correct, banks will not promise to pay par if they are not required to do so. If the transaction explanation is correct, banks will promise to pay par value only if the deposits are used in transactions. After the survey of the theoretical literature, we examine the history of banking in several countries in different eras: fourth-century Athens, medieval Italy, Japan, and free banking and money market mutual funds in the United States. We find that all of the theories can explain some of the observed banking arrangements, and none explain all of them.

Are national stock markets linked?

Stock market

The economics of international monies

The economics of international monies is likely to be informative about the future of the euro. The authors summarize the history of international monies, from the gold solidus introduced in the fourth century to the present. They identify four common characteristics of these currencies: high unitary value; relatively low inflation rates; issuance by major economic and trading powers; and spontaneous, as opposed to planned, adoption. Recent theoretical literature supports the importance of the characteristics, while recent theories’ common implication of multiple equilibria supports the importance of spontaneous adoption as developed by Menger and Hayek.

Branching, holding companies, and banking concentration in the Eighth District

Federal Reserve District, 8th ; Financial institutions