scholarly journals Bank Revolving Credit as a Channel of Monetary Policy Targeting Interest Rates

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
MUJTABA ZIA ◽  
◽  
JENNIFER LOGAN ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Credit Card ◽  
Credit Cards ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
Federal Funds Rate ◽  
Consumer Loans ◽  
Revolving Credit

This paper investigates the implication of bank revolving credit in the form of credit card loans as a channel of monetary policy targeting the federal funds rate since 1980. Credit cards have become increasingly popular and a necessity for many transactions and purchases in the United States. The revolving credit nature of credit card loans makes them an instant tool for consumer loans that can facilitate consumption. Using instrumental variable and two-stage least squares (2SLS) methodology, we analyze the implication of credit card loans to modern monetary policy that targets interest rates.

scholarly journals Deleveraging and Monetary Policy: Japan Since the 1990s and the United States Since 2007

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuo Ueda
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Federal Reserve ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
Federal Funds Rate ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
The U.S

As the U.S. economy works through a sluggish recovery several years after the Great Recession technically came to an end in June 2009, it can only look with horror toward Japan's experience of two decades of stagnant growth since the early 1990s. In contrast to Japan, U.S. policy authorities responded to the financial crisis since 2007 more quickly. Surely, they learned from Japan's experience. I will begin by describing how Japan's economic situation unfolded in the early 1990s and offering some comparisons with how the Great Recession unfolded in the U.S. economy. I then turn to the Bank of Japan's policy responses to the crisis and again offer some comparisons to the Federal Reserve. I will discuss the use of both the conventional interest rate tool—the federal funds rate in the United States, and the “call rate” in Japan—and nonconventional measures of monetary policy and consider their effectiveness in the context of the rest of the financial system.

scholarly journals Identification at the Zero Lower Bound

Econometrica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (6) ◽  
pp. 2855-2885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophocles Mavroeidis
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Lower Bound ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Zero Lower Bound ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
Federal Funds Rate ◽  
Vector Autoregressive ◽  
Structural Vector Autoregressive Model ◽  
Structural Vector

I show that the zero lower bound (ZLB) on interest rates can be used to identify the causal effects of monetary policy. Identification depends on the extent to which the ZLB limits the efficacy of monetary policy. I propose a simple way to test the efficacy of unconventional policies, modeled via a “shadow rate.” I apply this method to U.S. monetary policy using a three‐equation structural vector autoregressive model of inflation, unemployment, and the Federal Funds rate. I reject the null hypothesis that unconventional monetary policy has no effect at the ZLB, but find some evidence that it is not as effective as conventional monetary policy.

scholarly journals Monetary Policy Surprises and Inflation Expectation Dispersion

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (252) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand Gruss ◽  
Sandra Lizarazo ◽  
Francesco Grigoli
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Inflation Expectations ◽  
Federal Funds Rate ◽  
Inflation Expectation ◽  
Inflation Forecasts ◽  
Effect Of Monetary Policy ◽  
Information Rigidity

Anchoring of inflation expectations is of paramount importance for central banks’ ability to deliver stable inflation and minimize price dispersion. Relying on daily interest rates and inflation forecasts from major financial institutions in the United States, we calculate monetary policy surprises of individual analysts as the unexpected changes in the federal funds rate before the meetings of the Federal Reserve Board. We then assess the effect of monetary policy surprises on the dispersion of inflation expectations, a proxy for the extent of anchoring, which is based on the same analysts’ inflation projections submit-ted after the Fed meetings. With an identification strategy that hinges on a tight window around the Fed meetings, we find that monetary policy surprises lead to an increase in the dispersion of inflation expectations up to nine months after the policy meeting. We rationalize these results with a partial equilibrium model that features rational expectations and sticky information. When we allow the degree of information rigidity to depend on the realization of firm-specific shocks, the theoretical results are qualitatively consistent and quantitatively close to the empirical evidence.

scholarly journals Bankruptcy Reform and Credit Cards

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 175-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle J White
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Consumer Protection ◽  
Credit Card ◽  
Credit Cards ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abuse Prevention ◽  
Bankruptcy Law ◽  
Personal Bankruptcy ◽  
Consumer Protection Act ◽  
Bankruptcy Policy

From 1980 to 2004, the number of personal bankruptcy filings in the United States increased more than five-fold, from 288,000 to 1.5 million per year. By 2004, more Americans were filing for bankruptcy each year than were graduating from college, getting divorced, or being diagnosed with cancer. In 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) became law. It made bankruptcy law much less debtor-friendly. Personal bankruptcy filings fell to 600,000 in 2006. This paper explores why personal bankruptcy rates rose, and will argue that the main reason is the growth of “revolving debt”—mainly credit card debt. It explains how the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) of 2005 altered the conditions of bankruptcy. Finally, this essay considers the balances that need to be struck in a bankruptcy system and how the U.S. bankruptcy system strikes these balances in comparison with other countries. I argue that a less debtor-friendly bankruptcy policy should be accompanied by changes in bank regulation and truth-in-lending rules, so that lenders have a greater chance of facing losses when they supply too much credit or charge excessively high interest rates and fees.

scholarly journals Rewriting Monetary Policy 101: What’s the Fed’s Preferred Post-Crisis Approach to Raising Interest Rates?

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane E. Ihrig ◽  
Ellen E. Meade ◽  
Gretchen C. Weinbach
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Open Market ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
Federal Funds Rate ◽  
Standard Textbook

For many years prior to the global financial crisis, the Federal Open Market Committee set a target for the federal funds rate and achieved that target through small purchases and sales of securities in the open market. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, with a superabundant level of reserve balances in the banking system having been created as a result of the Federal Reserve's large-scale asset purchase programs, this approach to implementing monetary policy will no longer work. This paper provides a primer on the Fed's implementation of monetary policy. We use the standard textbook model to illustrate why the approach used by the Federal Reserve before the financial crisis to keep the federal funds rate near the Federal Open Market Committee's target will not work in current circumstances, and explain the approach that the Committee intends to use instead when it decides to begin raising short-term interest rates.

scholarly journals Tight Money And Loose Credit In An Open Economy

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Cosgrove ◽  
Daniel Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Monetary Policy ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Credit Card ◽  
Far East ◽  
Federal Funds Rate ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Bank Reserves ◽  
The U.S

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 34.2pt 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The U.S. Federal Reserve has been following a tight money policy, defined by growth in the quantity of money compared to nominal GDP growth since the first quarter of 2004. The Fed has also increased the federal funds rate 17 times in a row by August 8, 2006. Normally, this degree of tightening would be reflected in a slowing of real economic activity by mid-2006, with subsequent lowering of inflation pressures. Yet evidence of a slowdown only materialized in the second quarter of 2006. The housing sector illustrated signs of softening as the inventory numbers started to rise. Are there different factors influencing the effectiveness of monetary policy in this tightening cycle from prior tightening cycles in the Greenspan era? Our thesis is that the linkage between money and credit has become weaker in this cycle. Money appeared to be tight over the relevant time period, while credit was loose. Normally the two move in the same direction &ndash; when monetary policy tightens, credit conditions also tighten. But that didn&rsquo;t occur until very late in the tightening cycle, as credit remained plentiful. Long term interest rates remained low, compared to prior tightening cycles over the cycle. This divergence, in the assessment of the authors, is due to three factors: 1) an increase in monetary base velocity, 2) large net inflows of capital into the U.S., in particular from the Far East &ndash; Japan and China, and 3) the expansion of the markets for securitized assets. Rising incomes and high saving rates in the Far East combined with a relaxation of international capital controls resulted in a flood of savings washing up on America&rsquo;s shores. The securitization of bank-originated assets&mdash;originally home mortgages, but now including auto finance loans and credit card debt&mdash;has loosened the link between bank reserves and the level of credit in the economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp; </span>These factors combined to explain why credit is loose in the U.S. while money appeared tight. A U.S. economy with these characteristics explains in part why the connection between domestic money policy and credit market conditions has been weakened.</span></span></p>

scholarly journals Does the visual salience of credit card features affect choice?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Hilchey ◽  
Matthew Osborne ◽  
Dilip Soman
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rates ◽  
Random Sample ◽  
Credit Card ◽  
Credit Cards ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Visual Salience ◽  
Product Features ◽  
Hypothetical Scenario

Abstract Regulators require lenders to display a subset of credit card features in summary tables before customers finalize a credit card choice. Some jurisdictions require some features to be displayed more prominently than others to help ensure that consumers are made aware of them. This approach could lead to untoward effects on choice, such that relevant but nonprominent product features do not factor in as significantly. To test this possibility, we instructed a random sample of 1615 adults to choose between two hypothetical credit cards whose features were shown side by side in tables. The sample was instructed to select the card that would result in the lowest financial charges, given a hypothetical scenario. Critically, we randomly varied whether the annual interest rates and fees were made visually salient by making one, both, or neither brighter than other features. The findings show that even among credit-savvy individuals, choice tends strongly toward the product that outperforms the other on a salient feature. As a result, we encourage regulators to consider not only whether a key feature should be made more salient, but also the guidelines regarding when a key feature should be displayed prominently during credit card acquisition.

Materialism and Credit Card Use by College Students

2000 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 643-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Beth Pinto ◽  
Diane H. Parente ◽  
Todd S. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Credit Card ◽  
Credit Cards ◽  
The United States ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Spending Patterns ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Students Attitudes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Credit Card Use

Much has been written in the popular press on credit card use and spending patterns of American college students. The proliferation of credit cards and their ease of acquisition ensure that students today have more opportunities for making more credit purchases than any other generation of college students. Little is known about the relationship between students' attitudes towards materialism and their use of credit cards. A study was conducted at three college campuses in the northeastern part of the United States where a total of 1,022 students were surveyed. Students' attitudes toward use of credit and their credit card balances were evaluated relative to their scores on Richins and Dawson's Materialism Scale (1992). Our findings suggest no significant difference between those individuals scoring high versus low on the Materialism Scale in terms of the number of credit cards owned and the average balance owed. Individuals high on materialism, however, significantly differed in terms of their uses for credit cards and their general attitude toward their use.

scholarly journals Credit Card Rates and Consumer Switch: New Evidence

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Omar A. Abdelrahman
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rate ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Credit Card ◽  
Percent Level ◽  
Empirical Finding ◽  
Credit Cards ◽  
Credit Card Market ◽  
The Ohio State University ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Level Of Significance

This paper investigates the underlying determinants of consumer’s choices regarding switching credit-card balances. To estimate the likelihood that consumers switch credit cards, two logit models are estimated. Using data from the Consumer Finance Monthly (CFM) of The Ohio State University, the author finds that at the conventional 5 percent level of significance, the following variables have significance: old interest rate, new interest rate, duration of the introductory rate, balances, number of credit cards, homeownership, and age. As expected, interest rates, balances, the duration of new introductory offer rates, and homeownership have the greatest influence on why or why not people switch credit cards. The findings are consistent with the view that consumers make rational decisions in the credit card market, challenging Ausubel’s (1991) argument of credit card consumer irrationality and Calem and Mester’s (1995) empirical finding that credit card rates are sticky because consumers are irresponsive to rate cuts.

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