I earlier discussed the role that foreign government purchases of U.S. Treasury securities may have played in reducing long-term bond yields. A study by Fed researchers Glenn Rudebusch, Eric Swanson, and
Tao Wu that is soon to appear in
Monetary and Economic Studies explores an alternative explanation based on reduced volatility of underlying macroeconomic and financial fundamentals.
Category Archives: financial markets
The RMB: Where’s it been and where’s it going?
Faster appreciation against the dollar. And apparently against a broad basket of currencies.
Econoblog on “Dollars, Debt and the Trade Gap”
Thoughts on the Dropping Dollar
Bernanke in China
Distortion versus effective subsidy.
The yield curve and foreign purchases of U.S. debt
A few weeks ago I discussed some new research that suggests that the current negative spread between long-term and short-term yields may be a little less worrisome than earlier studies had led us to conclude, to the extent that the negative spread in part results from an unusually low term premium on U.S. bonds rather than an expectation of future declines in short-term yields. One factor that may be depressing that term premium is foreign holdings of U.S. securities.
Housing: speculative bubble or fundamentals?
Caclulated Risk had some interesting observations this week about why forecasts for housing differ so widely across analysts.
Will the Dollar Plunge? Would that Be So Bad?
Yesterday’s dollar plunge unnerved markets. What’s the likelihood of a sustained, drastic decline?
The yield curve and the term premium
Some new studies suggest that the yield curve inversion might not be quite as ominous as some of us have been assuming.
Federal Reserve policy and mortgage rates
I’ve recently completed writing a research paper titled Daily Monetary Policy Shocks and the Delayed Response of New Home Sales. The paper develops some new measures of the delay between changes in Fed policy and the impact on the economy. In this, the second of three posts on the paper, I describe the paper’s findings about how the Federal Reserve affects mortgage lending rates.
Accuracy of futures prices as predictors of the fed funds rate
I’m just finishing writing a new research paper whose goal is to come up with a better measure and understanding of the lagged effect of monetary policy on the economy. One of my claims is that the public’s expectations of what the Fed is going to do next play a key role in that process. In this, the first of several posts based on that paper, I describe some of the properties I’ve found for fed funds futures prices as predictors of subsequent Fed policy changes.