Accepted wisdom, assuming capital market equilibrium and low cash returns, advises investors to hold optimal portfolios containing little cash. But credit crunches - periods of non-price credit rationing when effective cash yields are very high - happen in the real world. Because of this, it is...

Procyclical assets tend to rise in value when the economy is expanding and fall with the advent of a recession. Countercyclical assets are instead negatively correlated with the state of the economy. Despite the use of optimization methods, hedging, and ad hoc rebalancing techniques most...

I show that an important no-arbitrage consistent but costly collateral rental yield contributes to about two-thirds of the standard CIP violations. I measure this yield using two approaches applied to short- and long-term CIP horizons. First, I assume that the yield is observable and proxy it...

We analyze the effect of monetary policy on yield spreads between corporate bonds with different credit ratings over the business cycle. We use futures contracts to distinguish between expected and unexpected changes in the Fed funds target rate and several indicators to distinguish between...

This paper examines the interactions of macroprudential and monetary policies. We find, using a range of macroeconomic models used at the European Central Bank, that in the long run, a 1% bank capital requirement increase has a small impact on GDP. In the short run, GDP declines by 0.15-0.35%....

This paper presents Bank of Canada staff's current assessment of the US neutral rate, along with a newly developed set of models on which that assessment is based. The overall assessment is that the US neutral rate currently lies in a range of 1.75 to 2.75 percent. This represents a decline of...

This study analyzes the emergence of secular stagnation as the consequence of a rise in the preference for liquidity. Such a rise is caused by a persistent set of pessimistic expectations. This study also investigates the effectiveness of a broad range of demand-management policies in dealing...

Shocks to equity options' ATM implied volatility (ATMIV) are followed by persistently lower short-term rates. Shocks to the ratio of OTM puts' over OTM calls' implied volatilities (P/C) are followed by persistently higher rates. The stock's and Treasury bond's ATMIV indices, which measure market...

In this paper, we shed new light on the role of monetary policy in asset pricing by examining the case where investors have heterogeneous expectations about future monetary policy. This case is realistic, because central banks are typically less than perfectly open on their intentions....

The existing literature has shown that an increase in the demand for safe assets induces the private sector to create more of them. Focusing on repos backed by US Treasuries, I theoretically and empirically show that an increase in the demand for safe assets leads to a decrease in repos...