Search Results
Working Paper
Federal Home Loan Bank advances and commercial bank portfolio composition
This paper considers the role of Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) advances in stabilizing their commercial bank members' residential mortgage lending activities. Our theoretical model shows that using mortgage-related membership criteria or requiring mortgage-related collateral does not ensure that FHLB advances will be put to use for stabilizing members' financing of housing. Using panel vector autoregression (VAR) techniques, we estimate recent dynamic responses of U.S. bank portfolios to FHLB advance shocks, bank lending shocks, and macroeconomic shocks. Our empirical findings suggest that ...
Working Paper
What does the yield on subordinated bank debt measure?
We provide evidence that a bank's subordinated debt yield spread is not, by itself, a sufficient measure of default risk. We use a model in which subordinated debt is held by investors with superior knowledge ("informed investor hypothesis"). First, we show that in theory the yield spread on subordinated debt must compensate investors for expected loss plus give them an incentive not to prefer senior debt. Second we present strong empirical evidence in favor of the informed investor hypothesis and of the existence of the incentive premium predicted by the model. Using data on the timing and ...
Working Paper
Federal Home Loan Bank advances and commercial bank portfolio composition
The primary mission of the 12 cooperatively owned Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) is to provide their members financial products and services to assist and enhance member housing finance. In this paper, we consider the role of the FHLBs' traditional product--"advances," or collateralized loans to members--in stabilizing commercial bank members' residential mortgage lending activities. ; Our theoretical model shows that using membership criteria (such as a minimum of 10 percent of the portfolio being in mortgage-related assets) or using mortgage-related assets as collateral does not ensure ...
Journal Article
Scale economies and technological change in Federal Reserve ACH payment processing
An analysis of the contribution of scale economies, technological change, and falling input prices to the absolute reduction in the real processing costs of an ACH transfer over the 1979-94 period.
Working Paper
An analysis of government guarantees and the functioning of asset-backed securities markets
Mortgage securitization has been tried several times in the United States and each time it has failed amid a credit bust. In what is now a familiar recurring history, during the credit boom, underwriting standards are violated and guarantees are inadequately funded; subsequently, defaults increase and investors in mortgage-backed securities attempt to dump their investments. ; We focus on a specific market failure associated with asset-backed securitization and propose a tailored government remedy. Our analysis of loan market equilibriums shows that the additional liquidity provided by ...
Working Paper
Bank core deposits and the mitigation of monetary policy
We consider the business strategy of some banks that provide relationship loans (where they have loan origination and monitoring advantages relative to capital markets) with core deposit funding (where they can pass along the benefit of a sticky price on deposits). These "traditional banks" tend to lend out less than the deposits they take in, so they have a "buffer stock" of core deposits. This buffer stock of core deposits can be used to mitigate the full effect of tighter monetary policy on their bank-dependent borrowers. In this manner, the business strategy of "traditional banks" ...
Working Paper
The competitive effects of risk-based bank capital regulation: an example from U.S. mortgage markets
Basel II bank capital regulations are designed to be substantially more risk sensitive than the current regulations. In the United States, only the largest banks would be required to adopt Basel II; other depositories could choose to adopt such standards or to remain under the Basel I capital standards. We consider possible effects of this two-pronged or "bifurcated" approach on the market for residential mortgages. Specifically, we analyze whether those institutions that adopt Basel II will enjoy lower costs than nonadopters and whether they have an incentive to retain mortgages in their ...