What does the level of the real interest rates tell us about where the economy, or one's portfolio, is headed? The answer to this question depends on one's estimate of the ``equilibrium'' value of real interest rates, a measure that is unfortunately not directly observed in the market place. In...

Nominal short term interest rates have been low in the United States, so low that some have wondered whether the federal funds rate is likely to hit its lower bound at 0 percent. Such a scenario, which some economists have called the liquidity trap, would imply that the Federal Reserve could no...

The performance of the U.S. commercial banking industry remained strong in 1998, but slipped a bit from the remarkable results of recent years. Both the return on assets and the return on equity edged down last year, although they remained high by historical standards. While supported by growth...

I analyze the business cycle implications of noisy economic indicators in the context of a dynamic general equilibrium model. Two main results emerge. First, measurement error in preliminary data releases can have a quantitatively important effect on economic fluctuations. For instance, under...

I construct a dynamic general equilibrium model where agents differ in the way they form expectations. Sophisticated agents form model-consistent expectations. Rule-of-thumb agents' expectations are based on an intuitive forecasting rule. All agents solve standard dynamic optimization problems...

If current projections of future budget surpluses materialize, investing in Treasury securities--an asset class with which investors have long been familiar--could eventually become a thing of the past. In this paper, I examine the extent to which investors' portfolio allocation decisions are...

How does the additional uncertainty associated with noisy economic data affect business cycle fluctuations? I use a simple variant of the neoclassical growth model to show that the answer depends crucially on the assumed expectation-formation capabilities of agents. Under efficient signal...

I examine pre-announcement and news effects on the stock market in the context of public disclosure of monetary policy decisions. The results suggest that the stock market tends to be relatively quiet--conditional volatility is abnormally low--on days preceding regularly scheduled policy...

This paper examines whether empirical and theoretical results suggesting a relatively small role for counterparty credit risk in the determination of interest rate swap rates hold during periods of stress in the financial markets, such as the chain of events that followed the Russian default...