In 2003, Canada's federal prudential regulator modified the capital adequacy test for property/casualty insurers to better align regulatory surplus with firm risk. We explore the impact of this change on the level and determination of insurers' surplus holdings. We find that firms have not...

How many interest rate hikes is quantitative tightening (QT) equivalent to? In this paper, I examine this question based on the preferred-habitat model in Vayanos and Vila (2021). I define the equivalence between rate hikes and QT such that they both have the same impact on the 10-year yield....

We document stylized facts about China's recent exchange rate policy for its currency, the Renminbi (RMB). Our empirical findings suggest that a "two-pillar policy" is in place, aiming to balance RMB index stability and exchange rate flexibility. We then develop a tractable no-arbitrage model of...

This paper offers an ambiguity-based interpretation of variance premium --- the difference between risk-neutral and objective expectations of market return variance --- as a compounding effect of both belief distortion and variance differential regarding the uncertain economic regimes. Our...

We generalize the long-run risks (LRR) model in Bansal and Yaron (2004) by incorporating the recursive smooth ambiguity aversion preferences of Klibanoff, Marinacci, and Mukerji (2005, 2009) and time-varying ambiguity. Relative to the Bansal-Yaron model, the generalized LRR model remains...

In this paper, we study the interplay between sovereign risk and global financial risk. We show that a substantial portion of the comovement among sovereign spreads is accounted for by changes in global financial risk. We construct bond-level sovereign spreads for dollar-denominated bonds issued...

This paper examines racial disparities in mortgage processing time prior to the global financial crisis. We find that Black borrowers are underrepresented and experience a longer processing time than White borrowers among the mortgages securitized by government-sponsored enterprises. At the same...

Forward guidance provides monetary policy communication for an economy at the effective lower bound (ELB). In this paper, we consider both calendar- and outcome-based forward guidance about the timing of liftoff. We develop a novel macro-finance shadow rate term structure model by introducing...

We evaluate the efficacy of the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF), a program designed to stabilize the corporate bond market in the wake of the COVID-19 shock. The Fed announced the SMCCF on March 23 and expanded the program on April 9. Regression discontinuity estimates imply...