THE MYSTERY OF THE PRINTING PRESS: MONETARY POLICY AND SELF‐FULFILLING DEBT CRISES

We study the conditions under which unconventional (balance sheet) monetary policy can rule out self‐fulfilling sovereign default in a model with optimizing but discretionary fiscal and monetary policymakers. When purchasing sovereign debt, the central bank effectively swaps risky government paper for monetary liabilities only exposed to inflation risk, thus yielding a lower interest rate. As central bank purchases reduce the (ex ante) costs of debt, we characterize a critical threshold beyond which, absent fundamental fiscal stress, the government strictly prefers primary surplus adjustment to default. Because default may still occur for fundamental reasons, however, the central bank faces the risk of losses on sovereign debt holdings, which may generate inefficient inflation. We show that these losses do not necessarily undermine the credibility of a backstop, nor the monetary authorities' ability to pursue its inflation objectives. Backstops are credible if either the central bank enjoys fiscal backing or fiscal authorities are sufficiently averse to inflation. (JEL: E58, E63, H63)     

违约风险下的信贷决策模型与机制

研究了违约风险下的信贷决策模型与机制,通过以银行个体合理性和激励相容性作为约束条件,建立了在考虑违约风险和项目成功概率条件下的信贷决策模型,分别给出了基于抵质押贷款和信用贷款策略下的信贷决策机制,探讨了信贷配给机制与无配给机制的设计方法,给出了在信贷出现配给时银行发放信用贷款和有抵质押贷款的条件.最后运用实例详细分析并讨论了不同违约概率条件下企业项目成功概率对银行期望收益的影响,得到了银行相应的贷款临界值和在不同项目成功概率条件下银行最大可接受的违约概率.     

The 2007 Subprime Market Crisis Through the Lens of European Central Bank Auctions for Short‐Term Funds

We study European banks' demand for short‐term funds (liquidity) during the summer 2007 subprime market crisis. We use bidding data from the European Central Bank's auctions for one‐week loans, their main channel of monetary policy implementation. Our analysis provides a high‐frequency, disaggregated perspective on the 2007 crisis, which was previously studied through comparisons of collateralized and uncollateralized interbank money market rates which do not capture the heterogeneous impact of the crisis on individual banks. Through a model of bidding, we show that banks' bids reflect their cost of obtaining short‐term funds elsewhere (e.g., in the interbank market) as well as a strategic response to other bidders. The strategic response is empirically important: while a naïve interpretation of the raw bidding data may suggest that virtually all banks suffered an increase in the cost of short‐term funding, we find that, for about one third of the banks, the change in bidding behavior was simply a strategic response. We also find considerable heterogeneity in the short‐term funding costs among banks: for over one third of the bidders, funding costs increased by more than 20 basis points, and funding costs vary widely with respect to the country‐of‐origin. The funding costs we estimate using bidding data are also predictive of market‐ and accounting‐based measures of bank performance, reinforcing the usefulness of “revealed preference” information contained in bids.     

The Impact of Geographic Proximity on What to Buy,How to Buy,and Where to Buy: Evidence from High‐Tech Durable Goods Market*

Social contagion effects due to geographical proximity refer to the social effects wherein the behavior of an individual varies with the behavior of other individuals who are geographically close. Although the influence of such effects on consumer choices has been established in several contexts, much of the extant studies have focused on its effect on consumers’ decision of whether to buy a new product or adopt a new innovation. There has been no systematic examination of the influence of geographic proximity on other aspects of consumers’ product buying process such as what to buy (i.e., brand choice), how to buy (i.e., the channel), and where to buy (i.e., retailers). Such effects can matter significantly in high‐technology and durable goods markets and therefore, it is critical to understand the scope of these on consumers’ choice of retailers and channel as well. Drawing on literatures from word of mouth effects, ecommerce, and consumers’ perception of risk in their purchase process, we develop a set of hypotheses on the effect of geographic proximity on consumers’ choices of what to buy, how to buy, and where to buy. Leveraging a microlevel dataset of purchases of personal computers, we develop brand‐, retailer‐, and channel‐related measures of proximity effects at the individual consumer level and estimate a joint disaggregate model of the three choices that make up a product purchase process to test these hypotheses. Our results indicate a significant contagion effect on each of the three choices. Furthermore, we find evidence of a greater effect of geographic proximity on inexperienced consumers—those who are new to the product category. Our results thus help develop a holistic understanding of the influence of social contagion effects on consumers’ decision making.     

Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy: What Do Twenty‐Three Million Bank Loans Say About the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit Risk‐Taking?

We identify the effects of monetary policy on credit risk‐taking with an exhaustive credit register of loan applications and contracts. We separate the changes in the composition of the supply of credit from the concurrent changes in the volume of supply and quality, and the volume of demand. We employ a two‐stage model that analyzes the granting of loan applications in the first stage and loan outcomes for the applications granted in the second stage, and that controls for both observed and unobserved, time‐varying, firm and bank heterogeneity through time*firm and time*bank fixed effects. We find that a lower overnight interest rate induces lowly capitalized banks to grant more loan applications to ex ante risky firms and to commit larger loan volumes with fewer collateral requirements to these firms, yet with a higher ex post likelihood of default. A lower long‐term interest rate and other relevant macroeconomic variables have no such effects.     

An Empirical Model of Perceived Mortality Risks for Selected U.S. Arsenic Hot Spots

Researchers have long recognized that subjective perceptions of risk are better predictors of choices over risky outcomes than science‐based or experts’ assessments of risk. More recent work suggests that uncertainty about risks also plays a role in predicting choices and behavior. In this article, we develop and estimate a formal model for an individual's perceived health risks associated with arsenic contamination of his or her drinking water. The modeling approach treats risk as a random variable, with an estimable probability distribution whose variance reflects uncertainty. The model we estimate uses data collected from a survey given to a sample of people living in arsenic‐prone areas in the United States. The findings from this article support the fact that scientific information is essential to explaining the mortality rate perceived by the individuals, but uncertainty about the probability remains significant.     

企业集团控制下的关联企业违约相关性度量研究

作为商业银行的重要客户,企业集团是多个企业的法人联合体.企业集团内的关联企业违约与否,常常受集团母公司的影响,并且集团内任一企业发生违约,都可能导致集团内其它关联企业发生违约,最终给银行造成巨大的累积信用风险.因此,度量集团内关联企业的违约相关性是银行防范集团客户信用风险的重要环节.基于此,通过将企业集团母公司的资产价值作为影响其控制企业的违约强度公共风险因子,结合违约强度模型,分析这些关联企业的随机违约强度过程,进而得到集团控制下的关联企业违约相关性度量模型.研究表明,企业集团控制下的关联企业违约相关性与母公司持有它们的股权比例成正向变化关系,但是股权比例的变化对违约相关性变化的影响较小.     

Stationary Equilibria in Asset‐Pricing Models with Incomplete Markets and Collateral

We consider an infinite‐horizon exchange economy with incomplete markets and collateral constraints. As in the two‐period model of Geanakoplos and Zame (2002), households can default on their liabilities at any time, and financial securities are only traded if the promises associated with these securities are backed by collateral. We examine an economy with a single perishable consumption good, where the only collateral available consists of productive assets. In this model, competitive equilibria always exist and we show that, under the assumption that all exogenous variables follow a Markov chain, there also exist stationary equilibria. These equilibria can be characterized by a mapping from the exogenous shock and the current distribution of financial wealth to prices and portfolio choices. We develop an algorithm to approximate this mapping numerically and discuss ways to implement the algorithm in practice. A computational example demonstrates the performance of the algorithm and shows some quantitative features of equilibria in a model with collateral and default.     

企业集团代理人风险态度、道德风险与信用风险传递

由于企业集团的关联企业众多,股权结构复杂,导致银企信息更加不对称,银行对企业集团贷款资金的监管更加困难,企业集团也更有机会产生不按照贷款合约使用贷款资金的道德风险,从而增大了银行的信用风险.针对此问题,首先分析了企业集团代理人转移银行贷款资金的动机,以及企业集团子公司之间信用风险的传递过程;其次,基于代理人效用最大化原理,分析委托代理合约、代理人风险态度,以及代理人转移贷款资金的道德风险对企业集团子公司信用风险的影响;最后,建立了度量企业集团子公司信用风险的违约概率模型.研究表明,代理人的风险态度、委托代理合约的状态都会影响企业集团子公司的违约概率.     

CAN WE INFER HOSPITAL QUALITY FROM MEDICAL GRADUATES’ RESIDENCY CHOICES?

This paper uses a novel approach to infer hospital technical quality from revealed preferences over residency programs. Specifically, we use Spanish medical graduates’ residency choices made from 1995 to 2000. We start by estimating a model of medical graduates preferences that controls for hospital, proximity, specialty, and gender effects. We interpret the coefficients on the hospital dummy variables as measures of medical graduates’ preferences over hospitals. Our results show that graduates do indeed discriminate between hospitals and that their preferences correlate with hospital‐specific covariates arguably related to hospital training quality. We then show that preferences from medical graduates are positively and statistically significantly correlated with risk‐adjusted hospital rankings based on five alternative outcome measures. Finally, we construct reputation scores for each hospital using news story counts in three media outlets and find that medical graduates’ preferences are especially valuable for inference of hospital technical quality of care as they do not simply reflect well known reputation.     

宏观压力测试下商业银行零售信贷产品PD模型预测研究

通过将宏观经济指标与商业银行零售信贷产品住房按揭PD构建宏观变量预测模型，得到预测显著的GDP、CPI、HPI等三个宏观经济指标，再观察其不同滞后阶数组合VAR模型的AICC值，最终选取宏观经济因子高阶项构建回归方程和进行压力测试。研究结果发现：从施压时点开始，不同压力情景下PD均开始缓慢增长趋势，其中重度情景下PD增幅最大。说明使用宏观经济因子的阶乘能更好捕捉上述特征，PD预测模型能准确描述风险传导过程，此举可有效帮助商业银行加强零售信贷领域风险管理。     

商业银行集团客户统一授信额度的优化配置研究

企业集团是商业银行重要的贷款客户,商业银行面临企业集团的授信业务风险尤为突出。在结构化模型的框架下,考虑统一授信额度的约束,基于对违约风险控制和贷款收益管理的多目标决策,构建了企业集团成员企业授信额度优化配置模型。示例分析表明,在考虑不同目标重要性的前提下,使用如遗传算法等最优化求解方法,可得到对成员企业授信额度的优化配置方案,从而有助于商业银行积极主动的防范集团客户的信贷风险。     

COMMON COMPONENTS OF RISK AND UNCERTAINTY ATTITUDES ACROSS CONTEXTS AND DOMAINS: EVIDENCE FROM 30 COUNTRIES

Attitudes towards risk and uncertainty have been indicated to be highly context‐dependent, and to be sensitive to the measurement technique employed. We present data collected in controlled experiments with 2,939 subjects in 30 countries measuring risk and uncertainty attitudes through incentivized measures as well as survey questions. Our data show clearly that measures correlate not only within decision contexts or measurement methods, but also across contexts and methods. This points to the existence of one underlying “risk preference”, which influences attitudes independently of the measurement method or choice domain. We furthermore find that answers to a general and a financial survey question correlate with incentivized lottery choices in most countries. Incentivized and survey measures also correlate significantly between countries. This opens the possibility to conduct cultural comparisons on risk attitudes using survey instruments.     

Strategy Alternatives for Homeland Air and Cruise Missile Defense

Air and cruise missile defense of the U.S. homeland is characterized by a requirement to protect a large number of critical assets nonuniformly dispersed over a vast area with relatively few defensive systems. In this article, we explore strategy alternatives to make the best use of existing defense resources and suggest this approach as a means of reducing risk while mitigating the cost of developing and acquiring new systems. We frame the issue as an attacker‐defender problem with simultaneous moves. First, we outline and examine the relatively simple problem of defending comparatively few locations with two surveillance systems. Second, we present our analysis and findings for a more realistic scenario that includes a representative list of U.S. critical assets. Third, we investigate sensitivity to defensive strategic choices in the more realistic scenario. As part of this investigation, we describe two complementary computational methods that, under certain circumstances, allow one to reduce large computational problems to a more manageable size. Finally, we demonstrate that strategic choices can be an important supplement to material solutions and can, in some cases, be a more cost‐effective alternative.     

CERs收益权质押融资业务的质押率模型

质押率的确定是进行质押融资的核心工作之一,合理的质押率是银行控制质押风险的重要途径。本文综合考虑了CERs收益权质押融资所面临的价格波动风险、借款企业的减排水平、违约风险和国家宏观经济风险等因素,在银行保持风险水平一致的基础上构建了CERs收益权质押融资业务的质押率模型。研究表明:最优质押率与银行愿意承受最大损失下的最大质押率之间的大小关系不是由企业期末CERs的完成率、CERs的初始价格及银行愿意承受的最大贷款损失度所决定的,而是由企业的违约概率、银行的贷款利率、资金成本、贷款时间及银行能够承受最大损失发生的概率所决定。最后,以欧洲气候交易所的CERs数据为基础进行算例分析。     

What Drives Media Slant? Evidence From U.S. Daily Newspapers

We construct a new index of media slant that measures the similarity of a news outlet's language to that of a congressional Republican or Democrat. We estimate a model of newspaper demand that incorporates slant explicitly, estimate the slant that would be chosen if newspapers independently maximized their own profits, and compare these profit‐maximizing points with firms' actual choices. We find that readers have an economically significant preference for like‐minded news. Firms respond strongly to consumer preferences, which account for roughly 20 percent of the variation in measured slant in our sample. By contrast, the identity of a newspaper's owner explains far less of the variation in slant.     

INDIVIDUAL RISK ATTITUDES: MEASUREMENT,DETERMINANTS, AND BEHAVIORAL CONSEQUENCES

This paper studies risk attitudes using a large representative survey and a complementary experiment conducted with a representative subject pool in subjects' homes. Using a question asking people about their willingness to take risks “in general”, we find that gender, age, height, and parental background have an economically significant impact on willingness to take risks. The experiment confirms the behavioral validity of this measure, using paid lottery choices. Turning to other questions about risk attitudes in specific contexts, we find similar results on the determinants of risk attitudes, and also shed light on the deeper question of stability of risk attitudes across contexts. We conduct a horse race of the ability of different measures to explain risky behaviors such as holdings stocks, occupational choice, and smoking. The question about risk taking in general generates the best all‐round predictor of risky behavior.     

需求随机时的存货质押贷款质押率决策研究

需求波动导致的风险是存货质押融资区别于有价证券质押融资的主要方面.本文研究了当存货的需求随机波动时,银行的最优质押率决策问题,并详细分析了不同的风险偏好对质押率的影响,结论表明风险厌恶及损失规避时的质押率均低于风险中性时的质押率.本文同时还分析了当质押率影响贷款企业的库存决策时,银行的最优质押率决策.最后,通过数值算例验证了文章的结论.     

Learning the Wealth of Nations

We study the evolution of market‐oriented policies over time and across countries. We consider a model in which own and neighbors' past experiences influence policy choices through their effect on policymakers' beliefs. We estimate the model using a large panel of countries and find that it fits a large fraction of the policy choices observed in the postwar data, including the slow adoption of liberal policies. Our model also predicts that there would be reversals to state intervention if nowadays the world was hit by a shock of the size of the Great Depression.     

Forecasting With Model Uncertainty: Representations and Risk Reduction

We consider forecasting with uncertainty about the choice of predictor variables. The researcher wants to select a model, estimate the parameters, and use the parameter estimates for forecasting. We investigate the distributional properties of a number of different schemes for model choice and parameter estimation, including: in‐sample model selection using the Akaike information criterion; out‐of‐sample model selection; and splitting the data into subsamples for model selection and parameter estimation. Using a weak‐predictor local asymptotic scheme, we provide a representation result that facilitates comparison of the distributional properties of the procedures and their associated forecast risks. This representation isolates the source of inefficiency in some of these procedures. We develop a simulation procedure that improves the accuracy of the out‐of‐sample and split‐sample methods uniformly over the local parameter space. We also examine how bootstrap aggregation (bagging) affects the local asymptotic risk of the estimators and their associated forecasts. Numerically, we find that for many values of the local parameter, the out‐of‐sample and split‐sample schemes perform poorly if implemented in the conventional way. But they perform well, if implemented in conjunction with our risk‐reduction method or bagging.