{"title":"Federal reserve monetary policy and income inequality across US states","authors":"Makram El-Shagi , Steven J. Yamarik","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103505","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103505","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the impact of Federal Reserve policy on income inequality across US states. We use the local projections method of Jordà to estimate impulse response functions for each state. We find that a <em>restrictive</em> monetary policy increases income inequality in almost all states, but with differing magnitudes. We also use panel analysis to examine the possible transmission mechanisms that account for these differences. Our empirical results confirm the theoretical predictions – inequality is increased by higher inflation, home ownership, and earnings in the finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector; but decreased by higher housing prices, unionization rates, educational attainment and minimum wage.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"161 ","pages":"Article 103505"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145797135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hiding in plain sight: Detecting underground sportsbooks through local Bitcoin demand","authors":"Paul Marmora","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103513","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103513","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Utilizing an event-study design across 41 countries, I find that countries with restrictive gambling laws and large shadow economies experience an abnormal spike in local Bitcoin activity immediately following their national team’s World Cup matches. This pattern is observed in measures of both local Bitcoin attention and local Bitcoin trade volume, is primarily concentrated in countries where gambling is expressly prohibited, and is independent of the game’s outcome or tournament round. Taken together, the results strongly suggest that local residents use Bitcoin to maintain anonymity when settling wagers placed with underground sportsbooks. In further support of this conclusion, I find a similar post-match pattern in local attention to other cryptocurrencies popular among criminals and a similar Bitcoin trade volume pattern following local interest in betting odds for other sporting events.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"161 ","pages":"Article 103513"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145883581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Markus Heckel , Tomoo Inoue , Kiyohiko G. Nishimura , Tatsuyoshi Okimoto
{"title":"The effectiveness of monetary policy: Evidence from market operation-based monetary policy indices","authors":"Markus Heckel , Tomoo Inoue , Kiyohiko G. Nishimura , Tatsuyoshi Okimoto","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103511","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103511","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Open market operations (MOs) became an integral part of the unconventional monetary policy (UMP) when the policy rates hit the effective lower bound in major advanced countries since the 2008 global financial crisis. This study quantifies the impact of UMP carried out by MOs on the macroeconomy in Japan from 2003 to 2019, based on four MO-based monetary policy indices (MO-MPIs). One index is characterized by a broadly defined quantitative easing index while the other three are liquidity supply indices targeting different financial market segments. Using Markov-switching vector autoregressions, we identify three distinctive regimes with different policy impacts: (1) before mid-2008, (2) from mid-2008 to mid-2016, and (3) after mid-2016. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the drastic policy change of April, 2013 (introduction of quantitative and qualitative easing) was not a regime changer. We find that UMP carried out by MOs was the most effective in the second regime, with very strong impacts of all MO-MPIs on macroeconomic variables such as GDP, CPI, government bond prices, and stock prices. Furthermore, MO-MPIs became substantially less effective in the third regime, after the Bank of Japan introduced yield-curve control.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"162 ","pages":"Article 103511"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145980414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public investment quality and sovereign risk","authors":"Amat Adarov , Ugo Panizza","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103503","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103503","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper introduces a new index measuring the quality of public investment covering 120 economies over the period 2000–2021. It shows that scaling up public investment reduces sove-reign risk in countries with high-quality public investment but increases sovereign risk when public investment quality is low. We find that this relationship is especially pronounced in sub-investment grade countries and that the results are not driven by the possible correlation between public investment quality and overall institutional quality. We also show that scaling up public investment when its quality is high does not undermine debt sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"161 ","pages":"Article 103503"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145797132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bruno Albuquerque , Eugenio Cerutti , Yosuke Kido , Richard Varghese
{"title":"Not all housing cycles are created equal: Macroeconomic consequences of housing booms","authors":"Bruno Albuquerque , Eugenio Cerutti , Yosuke Kido , Richard Varghese","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103496","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103496","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper shows that not all housing price cycles are alike. The speed and persistence of house price increases during housing expansions are key determinants of both the severity of the subsequent downturn and the net macroeconomic impact over the cycle. Analyzing 180 housing expansions across 68 countries, we classify 49 % as housing booms, characterized by rapid and persistent real house price increases. We find that economic downturns are significantly deeper and longer when housing contractions are preceded by a housing boom. The housing contraction is more severe the more intense the preceding housing boom, and when accompanied by a credit boom. Overall, while housing booms spur stronger economic growth during the expansion phase, their sharp reversals lead to severe housing contractions, resulting in significant net negative effects on the real economy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"161 ","pages":"Article 103496"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145694233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Helmut Herwartz , Christian Ochsner , Hannes Rohloff
{"title":"How do credit supply conditions transmit across the globe?","authors":"Helmut Herwartz , Christian Ochsner , Hannes Rohloff","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103488","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103488","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Pointing to the prominent role of global shocks in determining financial outcomes, global credit aggregates and indicators of country-specific credit market stress co-move to a significant extent. In this work, we examine the transmission of global credit supply shocks associated with governments, businesses and households to the country level. In a data-rich environment, we show that a substantial amount of variation in credit aggregates and interest rates is explained by common global credit supply components. In addition, we find that real risk and term premia and their associated uncertainties (i.e., realized volatilities) transmit global shocks to country-level debt and equity markets. However, effect magnitudes and signs are heterogeneous across sectors, and highlight the relevance of sector-specific credit market monitoring. For instance, whereas global government credit supply eases financial pressures, acting as safe-haven lending, global household credit supply shocks significantly increase risk and liquidity premia across the globe. An investigation of monetary policy effects of major central banks (Fed, ECB, BoE, BoJ) on global credit supply reveals important transmission heterogeneities of conventional versus unconventional policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"161 ","pages":"Article 103488"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145694230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decoding the digital finance revolution: How BigTechs, FinTechs and crypto-assets shape financial systemic risk in US and EU","authors":"Domenico Curcio , Simona D’Amico , Iftekhar Hasan , Davide Vioto","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103493","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103493","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using a market-indicator-based approach, this paper empirically examines whether the stability of the US and EU financial systems is affected by the digital finance revolution driven by BigTechs, FinTechs, and crypto-assets. These three sectors display different downside volatility profiles, with financial intermediaries being particularly sensitive to shocks from the crypto ecosystem only under extremely severe downturns, which are prevented in regulated equity markets. In that vein, we provide evidence that the Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation reduced financial systemic risk in EU. Overall, our empirical analysis shows that markets perceive the performance and riskiness of tech-driven companies and assets in differentiated ways, and that the transmission of shocks from digital finance ecosystems operates uniquely under varying conditions of systemic stress. Finally, we also document asymmetric spillover effects between advanced and emerging economies, with shock transmission from the US and EU to emerging markets being systematically stronger than in the reverse direction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"161 ","pages":"Article 103493"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145748023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Geopolitical risk and the cross-section of stock returns: International evidence","authors":"Ran Chen , Lu Yang , Xueyong Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2026.103526","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2026.103526","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the relationship between geopolitical risk (GPR) and the cross-section of stock returns in an international setting. We find that individual stocks’ exposures to <em>local</em> GPR are negatively related to their expected returns. This effect is more pronounced for firms in developed markets than those in emerging markets, and for firms in high-risk markets than those in low-risk markets. We also document that the pricing of local GPR varies across countries according to stock market development and information transparency. In addition, we demonstrate that <em>global</em> GPR is a significant pricing factor across international stock markets. These findings indicate that investors demand extra compensation in the form of higher expected returns to hold stocks with negative GPR betas and are willing to accept lower expected returns for “safe assets” that have positive betas.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"162 ","pages":"Article 103526"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146039150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joshua Aizenman , John Beirne , Menzie D. Chinn , Donghyun Park
{"title":"Fiscal and monetary policies for inclusive growth in developing and emerging markets","authors":"Joshua Aizenman , John Beirne , Menzie D. Chinn , Donghyun Park","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103489","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103489","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This editorial provides an overview of the papers published in a special issue that focuses on fiscal and monetary policies for inclusive growth in developing and emerging markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"162 ","pages":"Article 103489"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146189385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Liquidity, sentiment, and global spillover across financial markets","authors":"Zeyun Bei , Liyuan Cui , Yinggang Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103494","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jimonfin.2025.103494","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Debate remains about what drives global spillovers across financial markets. We address this question by examining the roles of sentiment, liquidity, and other fundamental linkages. Investor sentiment principally drives short-term spillovers, while long-term transmission is primarily influenced by liquidity. Moreover, we highlight the essential influence of capital flows in adjusting market liquidity and triggering global spillovers. Investor sentiment significantly intensifies the impacts of capital flows and unconventional monetary policies, contributing to potential systemic risks during distress. Additionally, we propose a new approach to capturing the structural changes in spillover networks and decomposing them into short- and long-term components.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48331,"journal":{"name":"Journal of International Money and Finance","volume":"161 ","pages":"Article 103494"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145797131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}