The effect of bank capital on lending is a critical determinant of the linkage between financial conditions and real activity, and has received especial attention in the recent financial crisis. We use panel-regression techniques--following Bernanke and Lown (1991) and Hancock and Wilcox (1993,...

We consider the effect of hedging with foreign currency derivatives on Brazilian firms in the period 1997 through 2004, a period that includes the Brazilian currency crisis of 1999. We find that, derivative users have valuations that are 6.7-7.8% higher than non-user firms. Hedging with currency...

What determined the corporate use of credit lines in the recent financial crisis? To address this question we hand-collect data on credit lines and interest rate hedging for a random sample of 600 COMPUSTAT firms. We document that drawdowns of credit lines had already increased in 2007, earlier...

This paper investigates the mortgage lending of banks operating in multiple U.S. metropolitan areas during the housing market collapse of 2007-2009. Some metro areas in the U.S. suffered much greater mortgage defaults than others. We use this regional variation to identify whether high mortgage...

Do firms use credit line drawdowns to finance investment? Using a unique dataset of 467 COMPUSTAT firms with credit lines, we study the purpose of drawdowns during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Our data show that credit line drawdowns had already increased in 2007, precisely when disruptions...

We add a nominal tax system to a sticky-price monetary business cycle model. When nominal interest income is taxed, the coefficient on inflation in a Taylor-type monetary policy rule must be significantly larger than one in order for the model economy to have a determinate rational expectations...

This paper uses a dynamic general-equilibrium model with a nominal tax system to consider the effects of temporary partial expensing allowances on investment and other macroeconomic aggregates.

Shifts in the long-run rate of productivity growth--such as those experienced by the U.S. economy in the 1970s and 1990s--are difficult, in real time, to distinguish from transitory fluctuations. In this paper, we analyze the evolution of forecasts of long-run productivity growth during the...

This paper examines welfare-maximizing monetary policy in an estimated micro-founded general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy where the policymaker faces uncertainty about model parameters. Uncertainty about parameters describing preferences and technology implies not only uncertainty about...

This paper provides documentation for the large-scale estimated DSGE model of the U.S. economy used in Edge, Kiley, and Laforte (2007). The model represents part of an ongoing research project (the Federal Reserve Board's Estimated, Dynamic, Optimization-based--FRB/EDO--model project) in the...