Lines of Credit and Consumption Smoothing: The Choice between Credit Cards and Home Equity Lines of Credit Staff Working Paper 2005-18 Shubhasis Dey The author models the choice between credit cards and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) within a framework where consumers hold lines of credit as instruments of consumption smoothing across state and time. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Credit and credit aggregates JEL Code(s): D, D1, D8, D81
Risk Perceptions and Attitudes Staff Working Paper 2005-17 Miroslav Misina Changes in risk perception have been used in various contexts to explain shorter-term developments in financial markets, as part of a mechanism that amplifies fluctuations in financial markets, as well as in accounts of "irrational exuberance." Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets JEL Code(s): D, D8, D81, D84, G, G1, G12
Determinants of Borrowing Limits on Credit Cards Staff Working Paper 2005-7 Shubhasis Dey, Gene Mumy The difference between actual borrowings and borrowing limits alone generates information asymmetry in the credit card market. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C3, D, D4, D8, D82
Monetary Policy under Model and Data-Parameter Uncertainty Staff Working Paper 2005-6 Gino Cateau Policy-makers in the United States over the past 15 to 20 years seem to have been cautious in setting policy: empirical estimates of monetary policy rules such as Taylor's (1993) rule are much less aggressive than those derived from optimizing models. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Monetary policy and uncertainty JEL Code(s): D, D8, D81, E, E5, E58
Are Distorted Beliefs Too Good to be True? Staff Working Paper 2003-4 Miroslav Misina In a recent attempt to account for the equity-premium puzzle within a representative-agent model, Cecchetti, Lam, and Mark (2000) relax the assumption of rational expectations and in its place use the assumption of distorted beliefs. The author shows that the explanatory power of the distorted beliefs model is due to an inconsistency in the model and that an attempt to remove this inconsistency removes the model's explanatory power. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Financial markets JEL Code(s): D, D8, D84, G, G1, G12
Risk, Entropy, and the Transformation of Distributions Staff Working Paper 2002-11 Mark Reesor, Don McLeish The exponential family, relative entropy, and distortion are methods of transforming probability distributions. We establish a link between those methods, focusing on the relation between relative entropy and distortion. Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial markets, Market structure and pricing JEL Code(s): C, C0, C1, D, D8, G, G0