Secondary loan participations, or loan "stripping," is a recent innovation in banking. In a secondary loan participation, or loan sale, a bank makes a loan and then sells the loan, without recourse, to a third party. Bank loans hitherto were nonmarketable securities which could only be removed...

Secondary loan participations, or loan sales, are a recent innovation in banking. In a secondary loan participation, or loan sale, a bank makes a loan and then sells the cash stream from the loan without explicit contractual recourse, guarantee, insurance, or other credit enhancement, to a third...

Over the period 1875 to 1997, using the yield curve helps forecast real growth. Using both the level and slope of the curve improves forecasts more than using either variable alone. Forecast performance changes over time and depends somewhat on whether recursive or rolling out of sample...

A discussion of the reasons why it may be in a government agency's--and society's--best interest to be vague about policy objectives. Using the concept of "cheap talk," the author explains that when an agency faces a trade-off between precise and credible announcements, its best move may be to...

This article examines the stochastic properties of aggregate macroeconomic time series from the standpoint of fractionally integrated models, focusing on the persistence of economic shocks. The authors develop a simple macroeconomic model that exhibits long-range dependence, a consequence of...

Conventional wisdom on bank diversification confuses risk with failure. This article clarifies the distinction and shows how increasing bank size may increase bank risk, even though it lessens the probability of failure and lowers the expected loss. The key result is an application of...

A study using out-of-sample regressions to determine how well the 10-year, 3-month yield spread predicts future real GDP growth. The author finds that although the yield curve is a good predictor over the entire 30-year sample period, it has become much less accurate over the last decade.