We analyze the foreign exchange trading earnings of large U.S commercial banks over the past several years. In particular, we use several approaches to try to determine to what extent these profits can be attributed either to position-taking by banks or to the provision of intermediation...

This paper considers an alternative econometric approach to the VAR methodology for identifying and estimating the effects of monetary policy shocks. The alternative approach incorporates available measures of market participants' expectations of economic variables in order to calculate economic...

Several recent studies have reached quite different conclusions about which variable is the best indicator of the stance of monetary policy. These differences likely reflect varying assumptions about bank and Federal Reserve behavior. This paper takes a detailed and comprehensive look at the...

In this paper, we examine the role of "financial factors" in Japan and attempt to gauge their recent impact on the Japanese economy. First, we find that proxies for financial factors enter significantly in behavioral equations for loan standards, loan demand and aggregate demand, although these...

This paper examines the historical effects of El Niño on world prices and economic activity. Although the primary focus is on world real non-oil primary commodity prices, the effects on G-7 consumer price inflation and GDP growth are also considered. This paper has several distinct advantages...

In this paper, we investigate a number of issues that have not been completely addressed in previous studies regarding the possible asymmetric effects of monetary policy. Overall, we interpret our results as weak evidence in favor of sticky-wage and sticky-price theories and strong evidence...