scholarly journals The Economics of the Fed Put

Author(s):  
Anna Cieslak ◽  
Annette Vissing-Jorgensen

Abstract Since the mid-1990s, negative stock returns comove with downgrades to the Fed’s growth expectations and predict policy accommodations. Textual analysis of FOMC documents reveals that policy makers pay attention to the stock market. The primary mechanism is their concern with the consumption wealth effect, with a secondary role for the market predicting the economy. We find little evidence of the Fed overreacting to the market in an ex post sense (reacting beyond the market’s effect on growth expectations). Although policy makers are aware that the Fed put could induce risk-taking, moral hazard considerations appear not to significantly affect their decision-making ex ante.

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (12) ◽  
pp. 3607-3659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Bianchi

We develop a quantitative equilibrium model of financial crises to assess the interaction between ex post interventions in credit markets and the buildup of risk ex ante. During a systemic crisis, bailouts relax balance sheet constraints and mitigate the severity of the recession. Ex ante, the anticipation of such bailouts leads to an increase in risk-taking, making the economy more vulnerable to a financial crisis. We find that moral hazard effects are limited if bailouts are systemic and broad-based. If bailouts are idiosyncratic and targeted, however, this makes the economy significantly more exposed to financial crises. (JEL E23, E32, E44, E63, G01, G21, G28)


Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quentin Grislain ◽  
Jeremy Bourgoin ◽  
Ward Anseeuw ◽  
Perrine Burnod ◽  
Eva Hershaw ◽  
...  

In recent decades, mechanisms for observation and information production have proliferated in an attempt to meet the growing needs of stakeholders to access dynamic data for the purposes of informed decision-making. In the land sector, a growing number of land observatories are producing data and ensuring its transparency. We hypothesize that these structures are being developed in response to the need for information and knowledge, a need that is being driven by the scale and diversity of land issues. Based on the results of a study conducted on land observatories in Africa, this paper presents existing and past land observatories on the continent and proposes to assess their diversity through an analysis of core dimensions identified in the literature. The analytical framework was implemented through i) an analysis of existing literature on land observatories, ii) detailed assessments of land observatories based on semi-open interviews conducted via video conferencing, iii) fieldwork and visits to several observatories, and iv) participant observation through direct engagement and work at land observatories. We emphasize that the analytical framework presented here can be used as a tool by land observatories to undertake ex-post self-evaluations that take the observatory’s trajectory into account, or in the case of proposed new land observatories, to undertake ex-ante analyses and design the pathway towards the intended observatory.


Legal Theory ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 301-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher T. Wonnell

This article explores four topics raised by Eyal Zamir and Barak Medina's treatment of constrained deontology. First, it examines whether mathematical threshold functions are the proper way to think about limits on deontology, given the discontinuities of our moral judgments and the desired phenomenology of rule-following. Second, it asks whether constrained deontology is appropriate for public as well as private decision-making, taking issue with the book's conclusion that deontological options are inapplicable to public decision-making, whereas deontological constraints are applicable. Third, it examines the issue of the relationship between deontology and efficiency, asking whether deontological constraints should yield in situations where everyone would expect to benefit from their suspension, either ex ante or ex post. Finally, the article concludes that constrained deontology is susceptible to political abuse because of the many degrees of freedom involved in identifying constrained actions and the point at which those constraints yield to consequentialist benefits.


Author(s):  
Chris Reed

Using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to replace human decision-making will inevitably create new risks whose consequences are unforeseeable. This naturally leads to calls for regulation, but I argue that it is too early to attempt a general system of AI regulation. Instead, we should work incrementally within the existing legal and regulatory schemes which allocate responsibility, and therefore liability, to persons. Where AI clearly creates risks which current law and regulation cannot deal with adequately, then new regulation will be needed. But in most cases, the current system can work effectively if the producers of AI technology can provide sufficient transparency in explaining how AI decisions are made. Transparency ex post can often be achieved through retrospective analysis of the technology's operations, and will be sufficient if the main goal is to compensate victims of incorrect decisions. Ex ante transparency is more challenging, and can limit the use of some AI technologies such as neural networks. It should only be demanded by regulation where the AI presents risks to fundamental rights, or where society needs reassuring that the technology can safely be used. Masterly inactivity in regulation is likely to achieve a better long-term solution than a rush to regulate in ignorance. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The growing ubiquity of algorithms in society: implications, impacts and innovations'.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Bouaddi ◽  
Omar Farooq ◽  
Neveen Ahmed

PurposeThis study examines the effect of dividend policy on the ex ante probability of stock price crash and the ex ante probability stock price jump.Design/methodology/approachWe use the data of publicly listed non-financial firms from France and the ex ante measures of crash and jump probabilities (based on the Flexible Quadrants Copulas) to test our hypothesis during the period between 1997 and 2019.FindingsOur results show that dividend payments are negatively associated with the ex ante probability of crash and positively associated with the ex ante probability of jump. Our results are robust across various sub-samples and across different proxies of dividend policy. Our findings also hold when we use ex-post measures of crash and jump probabilities.Originality/valueUnlike prior literature, we use ex ante measures of crash and jump probabilities. The main advantage of this forward looking measure is that it allows for more flexibility by modeling the dependence between market returns and stock returns as functions of their actual state. Our measure is also consistent with the behavior of investors and market participants in a way that the market participants do not know the future outcome with certainty, but rather they are anticipating the future.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-69
Author(s):  
Fernando Scarpati ◽  
Wilson Ng

A number of scholars of private equity (“PE”) have attempted to assess the ex-post returns, or performance, of PEs by adopting an ex-post perspective of asset pricing. In doing so a set of phenomena has been recognized that is thought to be specific to the PE sector, such as “money-chasing deal phenomenon” (Gompers and Lerner, 2000) and “performance persistence” (Lerner and Schoar, 2005). However, based on their continuing use of an ex-post perspective, few scholars have paid attention to the possible extent to which these and other PE phenomena may affect expected returns from PE investments. To address this problem this article draws on an ex-ante perspective of investment decision-making in suggesting how a number of drivers and factors of PE phenomena may produce “abnormal returns”, and that each of those drivers and factors should therefore be considered in accurately assessing the required risk premium and expected abnormal returns of PE investments. In making these contributions we examined a private equity investment of a regional PE in Italy and administered a telephone questionnaire to 40 PEs in Italy and the UK and found principally that while size is the most important driver in producing abnormal returns illiquidity alone cannot explain the expected returns of PE investments (cf. Franzoni et al., 2012). Based on our findings we developed a predictive model of PE decision-making that draws on an ex-ante perspective of asset pricing and takes into account PE phenomena and abnormal returns. This model extends the work of Franzoni et al. (2012), Jegadeesh et al. (2009), and Korteweg and Sorensen (2010) who did not consider the possible influence of PE phenomena in decision-making and will also help PE managers in making better-informed decisions


2019 ◽  
pp. 813-888
Author(s):  
Carsten Gerner-Beuerle ◽  
Michael Schillig

This chapter focuses on strategies that, in a broad sense, set the principle of limited liability aside in order to reach (the assets of) the natural or legal persons that benefit from corporate activity. These concepts are complementary to the ex ante strategies discussed in previous chapters. They are ex post in the sense that they will be triggered only if and when the former have failed for some reason. Their aim is to internalize as far as possible the social cost of corporate activity in order to set appropriate incentives for corporate decision-making. The legal concepts under consideration are largely standard based with open textured norms whose application heavily depends on the factual settings in every individual case. Consequently, the challenge is to provide workable criteria and coherent guidance for courts in order to ensure predictability for entrepreneurs and their legal advisers.


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