Here

​This article describes the origins and development of the federal funds market from its inception in the 1920s to the early 1950s. We present a newly digitized daily data series on the federal funds rate from April 1928 through June 1954. We compare the behavior of the funds rate with other money market interest rates and the Federal Reserve discount rate. Our federal funds rate series will enhance the ability of researchers to study an eventful period in U.S. financial history and to better understand how monetary policy was transmitted to banking and financial markets. For the 1920s and 1930s, our series is the best available measure of the overnight risk-free interest rate, better than the call money rate which many studies have used for that purpose. For the 1940s-1950s, our series provides new information about the transition away from wartime interest-rate pegs culminating in the 1951 Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord.



From:

Sriya Anbil
Mark Carlson
Christopher Hanes
David C. Wheelock

Here.

​We present the results of a randomized intervention in schools to study how teaching financial literacy affects risk and time preferences of adolescents. Following more than 600 adolescents, aged 16 years on average, over about half a year, we provide causal evidence that teaching financial literacy has significant short-term and longer-term effects on risk and time preferences. Compared to two different control treatments, we find that teaching financial literacy makes subjects more patient, less present-biased, and slightly more risk-averse. Our finding that the intervention changes economic preferences contributes to a better understanding of why financial literacy has been shown to correlate systematically with financial behavior in previous studies. We argue that the link between financial literacy and field behavior works through economic preferences. In our study, the latter are also related in a meaningful way to students’ field behavior.


​From:

Matthias Sutter
Michael Weyland
Anna Untertrifaller
Manuel Froitzheim​

Here.

An economy plagued by a slump and in a liquidity trap has some options to exit the crisis. We discuss “helicopter money” and other equivalent policies that can reflate the economy and boost consumption. In the framework analysed – where lump-sum transfers may be the only effective fiscal response, like in the current pandemic crisis – the central bank, and only the central bank, is the rescuer of last resort of the economy. Fiscal policy is bounded by solvency constraints unless the central bank backs treasury’s debt.


From:

Pierpaolo Benigno
Salvatore Nistico​

Here.

​In October 1979, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker persuaded his FOMC colleagues to adopt a new policy framework that i) accepted responsibility for controlling inflation and ii) implemented new operating procedures to control the growth of monetary aggregates in an effort to restore price stability. These moves were strongly supported by monetarist-oriented economists, including the leadership and staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The next three years saw inflation peak and then fall sharply, but also two recessions and considerable volatility in interest rates and money supply growth rates. This article reviews the episode through the lens of speeches and FOMC meeting statements of Volcker and St. Louis Fed president Lawrence Roos, and articles by Roos’ staff. The FOMC adopted monetarist principles to establish the Fed’s anti-inflation credibility but Volcker was willing to accept deviations of money growth from the FOMC’s targets, unlike Roos, who viewed the targets as sacrosanct. The FOMC abandoned monetary aggregates in October 1982, but preserved the Fed’s commitment to price stability. The episode illustrates how Volcker used a change in operating procedures to alter policy fundamentally, and later adapt the procedures to changed circumstances without abandoning the foundational features of the policy. 

From:

Kevin L. Kliesen
David C. Wheelock 
​

Here.

​We study the determinants of new and repeated research collaborations, drawing on the coauthorship network of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Working Papers series. Being an outlet where authors express their views on topics of interest, and given that IMF staff is not subject to the “publish-or-perish” conditions of the academia, the IMF Working Papers series constitutes an appropriate testing ground to examine the endogenous nature of co-authorship formation. We show that the co-authorship network is characterized by many authors with few direct co-authors, yet indirectly connected to each other through short co-authorship chains. We find that a shorter distance in the co-authorship network is key for starting research collaborations. Also, higher research productivity, being employed in the same department, and having citizenship of the same region help to start and repeat collaborations. Furthermore, authors with different co-authorship network sizes are more likely to collaborate, possibly reflecting synergies between senior and junior staff members. 

From:

Dennis Essers
Francesco Grigoli
Evgenia Pugacheva

Here.

We design a laboratory experiment to test the importance of wealth as a channel for financial contagion across markets with unrelated fundamentals. Specifically, in a sequential global game, we analyze the decisions of a group of investors that hold assets in two markets. We consider two treatments that vary the level of diversification of these assets across markets, which allows us to disentangle the wealth effect from other sources of financial contagion. We provide evidence of contagion due to a wealth effect when investors have completely diversified portfolios. In this treatment, for certain ranges of fundamentals, we show that a coordination failure in the first market reduces investors' wealth, which makes them more likely to withdraw their investments in the second market, thereby increasing the probability of a crisis.


From:

Anna Bayona
Oana Pela


We design a laboratory experiment to test the importance of wealth as a channel for financial contagion across markets with unrelated fundamentals. Specifically, in a sequential global game, we analyze the decisions of a group of investors that hold assets in two markets. We consider two treatments that vary the level of diversification of these assets across markets, which allows us to disentangle the wealth effect from other sources of financial contagion. We provide evidence of contagion due to a wealth effect when investors have completely diversified portfolios. In this treatment, for certain ranges of fundamentals, we show that a coordination failure in the first market reduces investors' wealth, which makes them more likely to withdraw their investments in the second market, thereby increasing the probability of a crisis.

Here.

​Why is the proportion of women who study Economics so low? This study assesses whether students respond to messages about majoring in Economics, and whether this response varies by student gender. We conducted an experiment among more than 2,000 students enrolled in Economics Principles courses, with interventions proceeding in two phases. In the first phase, randomly assigned students received a message with basic information about the Economics major, or the basic message combined with an emphasis on the rewarding careers or financial returns associated with the major. A control group received no such messages. In the second phase, all students receiving a grade of B- or better received a message after the course ended encouraging them to major in Economics. For a randomly chosen subset of these students, the message also encouraged them to persist in Economics even if their grade was disappointing. The basic message increased the proportion of male students majoring in Economics by 2 percentage points, equivalent to the control mean. We find no significant effects for female students. Extrapolating to the full sample, the basic message would nearly double the male/female ratio among Economics majors. Our results suggest the limits of light-touch interventions to promote diversity in Economics.

From:

Todd Pugatch
Elizabeth Schroeder

Here.

​A sunspot variable is any random variable that is not related to fundamental factors of the economy but a potential coordination device. The coordination power of sunspots has been analysed in theory and in experiments. However, some have discussed whether sunspots, e.g., public announcements such as financial market ratings, can create coordination problems. That discussion reached a new peak during the European sovereign debt crisis. We ask: can a sunspot variable, in form of a random forecast, trigger coordination problems? To answer that, we use a repeated three-player stag hunt game with fixed groups. In our experiment, a sunspot variable points randomly at the risk-dominant or the payoff-dominant choice. We find out-of-equilibrium behaviour caused by the sunspot variable in the short run. In the long run, the sunspot variable can lead to coordination on payoff-dominated equilibria. Only if the sunspot variable points more often to the payoff-dominated alternative, some groups use the sunspot variable consistently as a coordination device.

From:

Jan Sieber
Guanzhong Yang

Here.

​We present the results of a randomized intervention in schools to study how teaching financial literacy affects risk and time preferences of adolescents. Following more than 600 adolescents, aged 16 years on average, over about half a year, we provide causal evidence that teaching financial literacy has significant short-term and longer-term effects on risk and time preferences. Compared to two different control treatments, we find that teaching financial literacy makes subjects more patient, less present-biased, and slightly more risk-averse. Our finding that the intervention changes economic preferences contributes to a better understanding of why financial literacy has been shown to correlate systematically with financial behavior in previous studies. We argue that the link between financial literacy and field behavior works through economic preferences. In our study, the latter are also related in a meaningful way to students’ field behavior. 


From:

Matthias Sutter
Michael Weyland
Anna Untertrifaller
Manuel Froitzheim

Here.

​Banks face different but potentially correlated risks from outside the financial system. Financial connections can share these risks, but also create the means by which shocks can propagate. We examine this tradeoff in the context of a new stylised fact we present: German banks are more likely to have financial connections when they face more similar risks—potentially undermining the risk sharing role of financial connections and contributing to systemic risk. We find that such patterns are socially suboptimal, but can be explained by risk-shifting. Risk-shifting motivates banks to correlate their failures with their counterparties, even though it creates systemic risk. 

​From:

Matthew Elliot
Co-Pierre Georg
Jonathon Hazell

Here.

We experimentally investigate the effect of a central bank buying bonds for cash in a quantitative easing (QE) operation. In our experiment, the bonds are perfect substitutes for cash and have a constant fundamental value which is not affected by QE in the rational expectations equilibrium. We find that QE raises bond prices above those in the benchmark treatment without QE. Subjects in the benchmark treatment learned to trade the bonds at their fundamental value but those in treatments with QE became more convinced after repeated exposure to the same treatment that QE boosts bond prices. This suggests the possibility of a behavioural channel for the observed effects of actual QE operations on bond yields.

From:

Adrian Penalver
Nobuyuki Hanaki
Eizo Akiyama
Yukihiko Funaki

Here.

​This paper presents a new platform for large scale networks experiments in continuous time. The versatility of the platform is illustrated through three experiments: a game of linking, a linking game with public goods, and a linking game with trading and intermediation. Group size ranges from 8 to 100 subjects. These experiments reveal that subjects create sparse networks that are almost always highly efficient. In some experiments the networks are centralized and unequal, while in others they are dispersed and equal. These network structures are in line with theoretical predictions, suggesting that continuous time asynchronous choice facilitates a good match between experimental outcomes and theory. The size of the group has powerful effects on individual investments in linking and effort, on network structure, and on the nature of payoff inequality. Researchers should therefore exercise caution in drawing inferences about behaviour in large scale networks based on data from small group experiments.



From:
Syngjoo Choi
Sanjeev Goyal
Frédéric Moisan

Here.

​The traditional approach to the stress testing of financial institutions focuses on capital adequacy and solvency. Liquidity stress tests have been applied in parallel to and independently from solvency stress tests, based on scenarios which may not be consistent with those used in solvency stress tests. We propose a structural framework for the joint stress testing of solvency and liquidity: our approach exploits the mechanisms underlying the solvency-liquidity nexus to derive relations between solvency shocks and liquidity shocks. These relations are then used to model liquidity and solvency risk in a coherent framework, involving external shocks to solvency and endogenous liquidity shocks arising from these solvency shocks. We define the concept of ‘Liquidity at Risk’, which quantifies the liquidity resources required for a financial institution facing a stress scenario. Finally, we show that the interaction of liquidity and solvency may lead to the amplification of equity losses due to funding costs which arise from liquidity needs. The approach described in this study provides in particular a clear methodology for quantifying the impact of economic shocks resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 crisis on the solvency and liquidity of financial institutions and may serve as a useful tool for calibrating policy responses.

From:

 Rama Cont
Artur Kotlicki
​Laura Valderrama

Here.

We propose a new measure of systemic risk based on interconnectedness, defined as the level of direct and indirect links between financial institutions in a correlation-based network. Deriving interconnectedness in terms of risk, we empirically show that within a financial network, indirect links are strengthened during systemic events. The relevance of our measure is illustrated at both local and global levels. Our framework offers policymakers a useful toolbox for exploring the real-time topology of the complex structure of dependencies in financial systems and for measuring the consequences of regulatory decisions.

From:
Jean-Baptiste Hasse