Publications

08 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The Unintended Consequences of the Zero Lower Bound Policy

Keywords: by Marco Di Maggio and Marcin Kacperczyk; Banking

The Unintended Consequences of the Zero Lower Bound Policy

Our novel evidence suggests that in the times of unusually low interest rates money market fund managers increased, on average, their portfolios’ risk. We also show... View Details

16 Oct 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Government Debt Management at the Zero Lower Bound

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, Joshua S. Rudolph & Lawrence H. Summers

November 2012 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Perspectives on the Great Depression

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

The case assembles texts giving perspectives on the Great Depression by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, Anna Schwartz and Ben Bernanke. This should allow for a discussion of the role of fiscal and monetary policies in reaching and... View Details

Keywords: Great Depression; Keynesian Multiplier; Monetary Policy; Zero Lower Bound Of Interest Rates; Role Of Expectations In Macroeconomics; Performance Expectations; History; Policy; Interest Rates; Macroeconomics

Educators

Purchase

2023
Working Paper

Sovereign Default and the Decline in Interest Rates

By: Max Miller, James Paron and Jessica Wachter

Sovereign debt yields have declined dramatically over the last half-century. Standard explanations, including aging populations and increases in asset demand from abroad, encounter difficulties when confronted with the full range of evidence. We propose an explanation... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Interest Rates; Debt Securities

1996
Article

Limits on Interest Rate Rules in the IS Model

By: William R. Kerr and Robert G. King

There has been a substantial amount of research on interest rate rules. This literature finds that the feasibility and desirability of interest rate rules depends on the structure of the model used to approximate macroeconomic reality. We employ a series of... View Details

Keywords: Inflation and Deflation; Macroeconomics; Interest Rates; Price; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Performance Expectations

October 22, 2012
Article

Interest Rate Pass-Through: Mortgage Rates, Household Consumption, and Voluntary Deleveraging

By: Marco Di Maggio, Amir Kermani, Benjamin Keys, Tomasz Piskorski, Rodney Ramcharan, Amit Seru and Vincent Yao

Exploiting variation in the timing of resets of adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), we find that a sizable decline in mortgage payments (up to 50%) induces a significant increase in car purchases (up to 35%). This effect is attenuated by voluntary deleveraging. Borrowers... View Details

Keywords: Monetary Policy; Household Finance; Refinancing; Contract Rigidities; Debt Rigidity; MPC; Deleveraging; Personal Finance; Household; Policy; Borrowing and Debt; Macroeconomics

March 2025
Case

Calyx Global: Rating Carbon Credits

By: Michael W. Toffel and Adam Chen

This case describes how rating agencies and other organizations are seeking to improve the quality of carbon credits sold in the voluntary carbon market to organizations seeking to use them to supplement their internal decarbonization efforts to meet their net zero... View Details

Keywords: Service Design; Certification; Auditing; Auditor Reputation; Carbon Credits; Carbon; Rating Agency Disagreement; Ratings; Climate Change; Business Model; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Conflict of Interests; Reputation; Business Strategy

Educators

Purchase

When the Tailwind Stops: The Private Equity Industry in the New Interest Rate Environment

The consistent growth of long-term alternative asset managers in the past four decades coincided with the secular decline in interest rates. This has been an important tailwind for the private equity industry’s development as debt markets became increasingly... View Details

31 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Competition May Not Improve Credit Rating Agencies

reserves when investing in bonds of lower ratings. Ratings are also used in private contracts, for example to define the investment objectives of... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

2021
Working Paper

Limits to Bank Deposit Market Power

By: Juliane Begenau and Erik Stafford

Claims about the market power of bank deposits in the banking literature are numerous and far reaching. Recently, a causal narrative has emerged in the banking literature: market power in bank deposits, measured as imperfect pass-through of short-term market rates on... View Details

Keywords: Bank Deposits; Market Power; Net Interest Margin (NIM); Banks and Banking; Interest Rates; Risk and Uncertainty

11 May 2016
News

World Bank Vice President and Treasurer: Negative Rates Not the Answer

Reacting to a spate of nations adopting negative interest rates—essentially charging depositors for parking their money—World Bank Vice President and Treasurer Arunma Oteh (MBA 1990) told Bloomberg News that... View Details

2024
Working Paper

Changing Perceptions and Post-Pandemic Monetary Policy

By: Michael D. Bauer, Carolin Pflueger and Adi Sunderam

We document that the Fed’s perceived monetary policy response to inflation shifted materially over the post-pandemic period. In forward-looking policy rules estimated from surveys of macroeconomic forecasters, the inflation coefficient rose significantly after liftoff... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Inflation and Deflation; Interest Rates; Perception; Government Administration

March 2011
Article

Institutional Demand Pressure and the Cost of Corporate Loans

By: Victoria Ivashina and Zheng Sun

Between 2001 and 2007, annual institutional funding in highly leveraged loans went up from $32 billion to $426 billion, accounting for nearly 70% of the jump in total syndicated loan issuance over the same period. Did the inflow of institutional funding in the... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Financial Crisis; Credit; Debt Securities; Financing and Loans; Interest Rates; Investment

SSRN

01 Mar 2007
News

The Plight of the Global Poor

Indeed, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the microcredit Grameen Bank he founded in Bangladesh more than two decades ago. With interest rates ranging from View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons; bottom of the pyramid (BOP); Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools; Educational Services; Social Assistance; Health, Social Assistance

September–October 2018
Article

Online MAP Enforcement: Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment

By: Ayelet Israeli

This paper investigates a manufacturer’s ability to influence compliance rates among its authorized online retailers by exploiting changes in the Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy and in dealer agreements. MAP is a pricing policy widely used by manufacturers to... View Details

Keywords: Pricing Policies; Pricing; Channel Management; Legal Aspects Of Business; Retail; Price; Policy; Governance Compliance; Distribution Channels; Management; Retail Industry

Purchase

2021
Working Paper

Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information

By: David Freiberg, DG Park, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski

As an organization’s environmental impact has become a central societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, interest in measuring and analyzing environmental impact has increased. We develop a methodology to derive comparable... View Details

Keywords: Environment; Impact; Measurement; Environmental Ratings; Corporate Valuation; Financial Materiality; Sustainability; Environmental Impact; Environmental Strategy; Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation

SSRN

2022
Working Paper

The Need for Speed: The Impact of Capital Constraints on Strategic Misconduct

By: F. Christopher Eaglin

Under what conditions do firms engage in strategic misconduct? Why do they undertake actions that increase profitability yet break laws or violate strong norms often with costly consequences for public welfare? The strategic management literature offers two external... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Misconduct; Capital Constraints; Organizations; Crime and Corruption; Behavior; Situation or Environment; Capital