Modeling Variation in U.S. Bank Holding Companies’ Net Interest Margins
By Daniel Dorchuck This study explores variation in US bank holding companies’ (BHCs) net inter-est margins (NIMs) and the effects of interest rate risk exposure on NIMs. Interest rate risk (IRR) is intrinsic in maturity transformation and financial intermediation as banks take on short-term liabilities in the form of deposits and create assets in the form […]
Proposing an Alternative to the European Central Bank’s Fiscal Convergence Criteria
By Junaid Arefeen The recent onset of the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone has brought the viabil-ity of the Eurozone as a currency area into question. The unsustainable debt and deficit balances accumulated by several Eurozone nations since the adoption of the common currency in 1999, and the consequent incidence of high levels of sovereign […]
Inflation Volatility and Economic Growth: A Disaggregated Analysis
By Nicholas Becker Inflation volatility has been theorized to negatively affect real economic growth, but empirical analyses have returned somewhat mixed results. Constructing my own dataset of household group inflation rates by disaggregating and linking Consumer Expenditure Survey data with Consumer Price Index data, I analyze inflation volatility and economic growth from the ground-up. Calculating […]
Understanding the Argentine Peso’s Devaluation in 2014 —Analysis on Argentina’s Fiscal Sustainability from 1993 to 2013
By Feng Pan This research analyzes the fiscal sustainability of Argentina from 1993 to 2013. Specifically, it explains the peso devaluation in early 2014 and suggests that it is primarily due to the fundamental problems in Argentina’s economy. This paper highlights Argentina’s inability to enhance its fiscal conditions and suggests possible future economic developments in […]
The Rise of Mobile Money in Kenya: The Changing Landscape of M-PESA’s Impact on Financial Inclusion
By Hong Zhu M-PESA, the hugely popular mobile money system in Kenya, has been celebrated for its potential to “bank the unbanked” and increase access to financial services. This paper provides evidence to support this idea and explores mechanisms through which this might be the case. It specifically looks at the savings products held by […]
The Economic Effects of Military and Non-Military Government Spending
By Patrick Royal There has been substantial investigation into the influence of government spending in general on economic growth, unemployment, and inequality, but relatively little investigation into the relative effects of different types of spending. This thesis attempts to separate the influence of military and non-military government spending on the economy. As with many such […]
Fiscal Multicointegration and Sustainability in OECD Economics
By Rajlakshmi De Policies surrounding government expenditures and revenues are often concerned with the size of the national public debt and whether it is sustainable or unsustainable by employing the multi-cointegration framework and assertion corresponding criteria for sustainability. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Portugal, and Austria are found to exhibit sustainable fiscal policies during the […]
Manufactured Housing Securitization
By Renan Cunha Through prices of manufactured homes rose in the 2000’s, demand fell dramatically because of the boom in the stick-built housing market. One of the stated goals of securitization is to increase the supply of credit and decrease the cost of lending to make borrowing accessible to more homeowners. This paper will study […]
The Hidden Costs of Central Bank Borrowing
By Shane Hunt This paper explores a previously overlooked unintended consequence of a private bank accepting Central Bank loans as a lender of last resort. Applying the basic Markowitz Security Model, I explore the potential effect of a private bank accepting a Central Bank loan as a signal of increased risk of investment in that […]
