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Journal Article
Banks’ Commercial Real Estate Risks Are Uneven
Investors have been acutely attuned to commercial real estate (CRE) risks recently due to higher interest rates and changes in how Americans work. On the surface, these risks may seem particularly concerning for small and regional banks, which tend to hold large concentrations of loans backed by commercial properties. However, we show that CRE risks can vary substantially across property types and geographic locations, suggesting that aggregate CRE exposure may be a poor measure of risk.
Working Paper
Competition and Bank Fragility
Journal Article
Pushing the Limit: Last-Minute Debt Limit Resolutions Have Increased Market Volatility and Uncertainty
Since reaching the debt limit in January 2023, the U.S. Treasury has used extraordinary measures to fund the government. However, the Treasury estimates those measures will be exhausted later this year. To gauge possible effects, we review economic and financial market outcomes during previous debt limit episodes. In each case, these episodes led to increased borrowing costs, financial market volatility, and uncertainty, particularly when the resolutions were prolonged.
Journal Article
Community Bank Funding Is Getting Costlier and Riskier
Banks’ core funding has been under pressure since the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) began raising rates in early 2022. As depositors shift funds out of low-yielding savings and noninterest-bearing deposit accounts and into more lucrative alternative investments, community banks have increasingly turned to longer-maturity deposits and borrowings to finance their balance sheets. Although these funding sources allow banks to retain their asset size, they are both more expensive and potentially less stable.
Journal Article
Corporate Interest Expenses Are Expected to Increase Further
Although firm leverage has fallen from pandemic highs, rising interest rates have raised firms’ interest expenses. The effects of this monetary policy tightening are likely to continue unfolding over the next few years. As low-yield, fixed-rate corporate debt issued during the pandemic matures, firms may need to refinance this debt at higher rates, further increasing their interest expenses. However, most corporations are well-positioned to carry these interest expenses so long as their earnings remain stable.
Journal Article
The Implications of Unrealized Losses for Banks
nterest rates have risen across the yield curve since the Federal Open Market Committee began tightening monetary policy in March 2022. After amassing securities during the pandemic, commercial banks saw rising interest rates erode the value of their securities portfolios by nearly $600 billion, or about 30 percent of their capital holdings. In some cases, declines in valuation of securities holdings in response to interest rate changes—known as “unrealized losses”—can mechanically reduce key regulatory capital and liquidity ratios. Should banks need to sell the securities to generate ...
Journal Article
What's Driving Leveraged Loan Spreads?
Syndicated loan spreads have declined since the financial crisis, reducing the cost of credit for corporate borrowers. However, the combination of aggressive loan pricing and weaker credit protections has concerned market observers. We find that syndicated loan spreads have declined across loan and borrower types since the crisis. We also find the decline has been more pronounced for highly leveraged borrowers and has accelerated since 2016, especially for term loans.
Journal Article
Bank Financial Restatements and Market Discipline
Banks may reissue financial statements for several reasons, ranging from simple accounting or clerical errors to fraud. Regardless of the reason, financial restatements send negative signals to the public, potentially driving stakeholders to undertake actions that are costly to the restating bank. These actions constitute ?market discipline? and may incentivize banks to report financial information accurately. But whether financial restatements lead to market discipline is an empirical question. For example, strict bank regulation might blunt disciplinary effects if stakeholders believe ...
Journal Article
Why Are Multifamily Property Prices Falling?
Multifamily property prices climbed to record levels in recent years amid low interest rates and surging housing demand. More recently, prices have retreated in the face of higher interest rates, slower rent growth, elevated operating expenses, and increased delivery of new units available for rent. However, the deterioration in these fundamentals does not fully explain recent property price declines, suggesting investors’ near-term outlooks have been pessimistic.
Journal Article
Bank Deposit Rates Haven't Kept Pace with Yields on Other Investments, but Depositors Are Staying Anyway
Bank deposit outflows continued during 2023 despite rising deposit rates. One possible explanation is that deposit rate increases have not kept pace with rising yields on other investments. For example, spreads between bank deposit rates and yields on deposit substitutes such as money market funds have reached historically high levels. Although the outlook for deposit rates depends on the policy rate path, deposit levels are likely to remain stable under alternative policy scenarios.