Denise Duffy, Joseph G. Haubrich, A. Kovner, A. Musatov, E. Prescott, R. Rosen, Thomas D. Tallarini, Alexandros P. Vardoulakis, E. Yang, A. Zlate
{"title":"Macroprudential Policy: Results from a Tabletop Exercise","authors":"Denise Duffy, Joseph G. Haubrich, A. Kovner, A. Musatov, E. Prescott, R. Rosen, Thomas D. Tallarini, Alexandros P. Vardoulakis, E. Yang, A. Zlate","doi":"10.26509/FRBC-WP-201911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26509/FRBC-WP-201911","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a tabletop exercise designed to analyze macroprudential policy. Several senior Federal Reserve officials were presented with a hypothetical economy as of 2020:Q2 in which commercial real estate and nonfinancial debt valuations were very high. After analyzing the economy and discussing the use of monetary and macroprudential policy tools, participants were then presented with a hypothetical negative shock to commercial real estate valuations that occurred in the second half of 2020. Participants then discussed the use of the tools during an incipient downturn. Some of the findings of the exercise were that during an asset boom, there were limits to the effectiveness of US macroprudential tools in controlling narrow risks and that changes to the fed funds rate may not always simultaneously meet macroeconomic and financial stability goals. Some other findings were that during a downturn, it would be desirable to use high-frequency indicators for deciding when to release the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) and that tensions exist between microprudential and macroprudential goals when using the CCyB and the stress test.","PeriodicalId":141449,"journal":{"name":"Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)","volume":"216 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128880949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Variation in the Phillips Curve Relation Across Three Phases of the Business Cycle","authors":"Richard Ashley, Randal J. Verbrugge","doi":"10.26509/FRBC-WP-201909","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26509/FRBC-WP-201909","url":null,"abstract":"We use recently developed econometric tools to demonstrate that the Phillips curve unemployment rate–inflation rate relationship varies in an economically meaningful way across three phases of the business cycle. The first (“bust phase”) relationship is the one highlighted by Stock and Watson (2010): A sharp reduction in inflation occurs as the unemployment rate is rising rapidly. The second (“recovery phase”) relationship occurs as the unemployment rate subsequently begins to fall; during this phase, inflation is unrelated to any conventional unemployment gap. The final (“overheating phase”) relationship begins once the unemployment rate drops below its natural rate. We validate our findings in a forecasting exercise and find statistically significant episodic forecast improvement. Our analysis allows us to provide a unified explanation of many prominent findings in the literature.","PeriodicalId":141449,"journal":{"name":"Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134484801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can Landlords Be Paid to Stop Avoiding Voucher Tenants?","authors":"Dionissi Aliprantis, Hal Martin, D. Phillips","doi":"10.26509/FRBC-WP-201902","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26509/FRBC-WP-201902","url":null,"abstract":"Despite being eligible for use in any neighborhood, housing choice vouchers tend to be redeemed in low-opportunity neighborhoods. This paper investigates whether landlord behavior contributes to this outcome by studying the recent expansion of neighborhood-based voucher limits in Washington, DC. We conduct two waves of a correspondence experiment: one before and one after the expansion. Landlords heavily penalize tenants who indicate a desire to pay by voucher. The voucher penalty is larger in high-rent neighborhoods, pushing voucher tenants to low-rent neighborhoods. We find no evidence that indexing rents to small areas affects landlord acceptance of voucher tenants. The data can reject the claim that increasing rent limits by less than $3,000 per month can eliminate the voucher penalty. Neighborhood rent limits do shift lease-up locations toward high-rent neighborhoods in the year after the policy change, an effect that is large relative to the number of voucher households that move but small relative to all voucher tenants.","PeriodicalId":141449,"journal":{"name":"Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129372549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"All Fluctuations Are Not Created Equal: The Differential Roles of Transitory versus Persistent Changes in Driving Historical Monetary Policy","authors":"Richard Ashley, K. Tsang, Randal J. Verbrugge","doi":"10.26509/FRBC-WP-201814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26509/FRBC-WP-201814","url":null,"abstract":"The historical analysis of FOMC behavior using estimated simple policy rules requires the specification of either an estimated natural rate of unemployment or an output gap. But in the 1970s, neither output gap nor natural rate estimates appear to guide FOMC deliberations. This paper uses the data to identify the particular implicit unemployment rate gap (if any) that is consistent with FOMC behavior. While its ability appears to have improved over time, our results indicate that, both before the Volcker period and through the Bernanke period, the FOMC distinguished persistent movements in the unemployment rate from other movements; implicitly such movements were treated as an intermediate target, one that departs substantially from conventional estimates of the natural rate. We further investigate historical FOMC responses to inflation fluctuations. In this regard, FOMC behavior changed in the Volcker-Greenspan-Bernanke period: its response to the inflation rate became much stronger, and it focused more intensely on very persistent movements in this variable. Our results shed light on the ?Great Inflation? experience of the 1970s, and are consistent with the view that political pressures effectively limited the FOMC response to the buildup of inflation. They also suggest new directions for DSGE modeling.","PeriodicalId":141449,"journal":{"name":"Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124177721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dionissi Aliprantis, Daniel R. Carroll, Eric R. Young
{"title":"Can Wealth Explain Neighborhood Sorting by Race and Income?","authors":"Dionissi Aliprantis, Daniel R. Carroll, Eric R. Young","doi":"10.26509/FRBC-WP-201808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26509/FRBC-WP-201808","url":null,"abstract":"Why do high-income blacks live in neighborhoods with characteristics similar to those of low-income whites? One plausible explanation is wealth, since homeownership requires some wealth, and black households hold less wealth than white households at all levels of income. We present evidence against this hypothesis by showing that wealth does not predict sorting into neighborhood quality once race and income are taken into account. An alternative explanation is that the scarcity of high-quality black neighborhoods increases the cost of living in a high-quality neighborhood for black households with even weak race preferences. We present evidence in favor of this hypothesis by showing that sorting into neighborhood racial composition is similar across wealth levels conditional on race and income.","PeriodicalId":141449,"journal":{"name":"Working paper (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland)","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131127720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}