Staff working papers

We present a new matrix-logarithm model of the realized covariance matrix of stock returns. The model uses latent factors which are functions of both lagged volatility and returns.

This paper uses real-time briefing forecasts prepared for the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to provide estimates of historical changes in the design of U.S. monetary policy and in the implied central-bank target for inflation. Empirical results support a description of policy with an effective inflation target of roughly 7 percent in the 1970s.

The inflation targeting (IT) regime is 17 years old. With practice of IT now in more than 21 countries, there is enough evidence gathered to take stock of the IT experience. In this paper, we analyze the inflation record of IT central banks.

This paper analyzes endogenous fluctuations in total factor productivity (TFP) in a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, and illustrates the interaction of credit market frictions, asset prices, the entry and exit of firms, and fluctuations in TFP in response to firm-level productivity and aggregate credit-market shocks. I also analyze the effect of bankruptcy and foreclosure laws on fluctuations in TFP through their effect on credit market frictions.

Over the past 15 years, long-term interest rates have declined to levels not seen since the 1970s. This paper explores possible shifts in global savings and investment that have led to this fall in the world real interest rate.

We assess the implications of price indexation for estimated frequency of price adjustment in sticky price models of business cycles. These models predominantly assume that non-reoptimized prices are indexed to lagged or average inflation.

This paper provides an analysis of how a firm’s decision to serve a foreign market by exporting or by engaging in foreign direct investment (FDI) affects firm productivity, when productivity is endogeneous as a function of training. The main result of our paper is that, with endogeneous productivity, exporting results in lower productivity than does FDI, but exporting may result in higher or lower employment and output than does FDI.

The stochastic simulation model suggested by Bolder (2003) for the analysis of the federal government's debt-management strategy provides a wide variety of useful information. It does not, however, assist in determining an optimal debt-management strategy for the government in its current form.

This paper asks: What is the effect of government policy on output and inequality in an environment with education and labor-supply decisions? The answer is given in a general equilibrium model, consistent with the post 1960s facts on male wage inequality and labor supply in the U.S. In the model, education and labor-supply decisions depend on progressive income taxation, the education system, the social security system, and technology-driven wage differentials.

Loan-level data on the uncollateralized overnight loan market is generated using payment data from Canada's Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) and a modified version of the methodology proposed in Furfine (1999). There were on average just under 100 loans extended in this market each day from March 2004 to March 2006 for a total daily value of about $5 billion.