These government-sponsored enterprises continue to make headlines because of their explosive growth and resulting heavyweight status within the nation's financial system.

As painful as it may be, letting the housing and mortgage markets sort out these problems on their own would be best for the economy in the long run. Large-scale government interventions are not necessarily the best policy responses, although those made truly needy by this crisis need to be helped.

Market efficiency remains a contentious topic among financial economists. The theoretical case for efficient markets rests on the notion of risk-free, cost-free arbitrage. In real markets, however, arbitrage is not risk-free or cost-free. In addition, the number of informed arbitrageurs and the...

This article uses probability forecasts derived from options to assess evolving market uncertainty about Federal Reserve monetary policy actions in a variety of recent events and episodes. Options on federal funds futures contracts reveal a complete probability density function over possible...

This article describes the most important corporate governance practices in contemporary Germany. These practices include a prominent role for universal banks, other large financial and non-financial firms, and employees through a system known as codetermination. While some similarities exist,...

Wholesale payments and settlement systems in G-10 countries have undergone significant change in recent years. Notably, central banks have sought to increase the safety and reliability of these systems. In this article, William R. Emmons describes two approaches that have been pursued....

Corporate governance practices differ greatly in the United States and Germany. This paper describes the main institutional features of the German corporate governance system, focusing on universal banks and codetermination. The paper also summarizes existing empirical evidence that has...

We model competition in local deposit markets between for-profit and not-for-profit financial institutions. For-profit retail banks may offer a superior bundle of financial services, but not-for-profit (occupational) credit unions enjoy sponsor subsidies that allow them to capture a share of the...