Central banks have become increasingly communicative. An important reason is that democratic societies expect more transparency from public institutions. Central bankers, based on empirical research, also believe that sharing information has economic benefits. Communication is seen as a way to...

Central banks worldwide have become more transparent. An important reason is that democratic societies expect more openness from public institutions. Policymakers also see transparency as a way to improve the predictability of monetary policy, thereby lowering interest rate volatility and...

Since the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) began announcing its policy decisions in 1994, U.S. stock returns have on average been more than thirty times larger on announcement days than on other days. Surprisingly, these abnormal returns are accrued before the policy announcement. The excess...

This paper provides evidence on the extent to which inflation expectations generated by a standard Christiano et al. (2005)/Smets and Wouters (2003)–type DSGE model are in line with what is observed in the data. We consider three variants of this model that differ in terms of the behavior of,...

The recent crisis highlighted the importance of globally active banks in linking markets. One channel for this linkage is the liquidity management of these banks, specifically the regular flow of funds between parent banks and their affiliates in diverse foreign markets. We use the Great...

Banks play a critical role in facilitating international trade, in particular by reducing the risk of trade transactions. This paper uses unique information on the trade finance business of U.S. banks to document new empirical patterns. The data reveal that banks' trade finance claims differ...

To conduct academic research on the federal funds (fed funds) market, historically one of the most important financial markets in the U.S., some empirical economists have used market level measures published by the Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). To obtain more...

Foreign banks pulled significant funding from their U.S. branches during the Great Recession. We estimate that the average-sized branch experienced a 12 percent net internal fund “withdrawal,” with the fund transfer disproportionately bigger for larger branches. This internal shock to the...

With short-term interest rates at the zero lower bound, forward guidance has become a key tool for central bankers, and yet we know little about its effectiveness. Standard medium-scale DSGE models tend to grossly overestimate the impact of forward guidance on the macroeconomy—a phenomenon we...

International financial linkages, particularly through global bank flows, generate important questions about the consequences for economic and financial stability, including the ability of countries to conduct autonomous monetary policy. I address the monetary autonomy issue in the context of...