This paper assesses the role that monetary policy plays in the decision to default using a General Equilibrium model with collateralized loans, trade in fiat money and production. Long-term nominal loans are backed by collateral, the value of which depends on monetary policy. The decision to...

We provide a critical theoretical and empirical analysis that suggests a key driver of fiscal effects on equity markets is the Federal Reserve. For the Post-1980 era, tax cuts lead to higher cash flow news and higher discount rates. The discount rate news tends to dominate such that tax cuts are...

We examine the effects of liquidity, default and personal taxes on the relative yields of Treasuries and municipals using a generalized model with liquidity risk. The municipal yield model includes liquidity as a state factor. Using a unique transaction dataset, we are able to estimate the...

This paper decomposes nominal Treasury yields into expected real rates, expected inflation rates, real risk premiums, and inflation risk premiums by separately calibrating a three-factor affine term structure model to the nominal Treasury and TIPS yield curves. Although this particular...

This paper examines the first three moments of investors' expectations for the housing sector. That is, first, what do financial markets imply about expected future home prices? Second, how much confidence do investors have in their forecast? And, third, do market participants see more downside...

It has been documented that an increase in the demand for safe assets induces the private sector to create more money-like claims. Focusing on private repos backed by U.S. Treasury securities, I show that an increase in the demand for safe assets leads to a decreases in the issuance of Treasury...

In the period prior to the financial crisis, leverage in the financial system increased substantially. This buildup was likely facilitated by, among other factors, a loosening of credit terms related to OTC derivatives and securities financing transactions. However, little or no systematic data...

This paper develops a theoretical model of trading in the federal funds market that captures characteristics of discount window borrowing and the federal funds market during the first year of the financial crisis, including the narrowing of the spread between the discount rate and the target...

Estimating the effect of Federal Reserve's announcements of Large-Scale Asset Purchase (LSAP) programs on corporate credit risk is complicated by the simultaneity of policy decisions and movements in prices of risky financial assets, as well as by the fact that both interest rates of assets...

We construct a novel U.S. data set that matches bank holding company credit default swap (CDS) positions to detailed U.S. credit registry data containing both loan and corporate bond holdings to study the effects of banks' CDS use on corporate credit quality. Banks may use CDS to mitigate agency...