Research Database

This paper develops a dynamic continuous-time model in which international risk sharing can yield substantial welfare gains through its positive effect on expected consumption growth. The mechanism linking global diversification to growth is an attendant world portfolio shift from safe, but low-yield, capital into riskier, high-yield capital. The presence of these two types of capital is meant to capture the idea that growth depends on the availability of an ever-increasing array of specialized, hence inherently risky, production inputs. A partial calibration exercise based on Penn World Table consumption data implies steady-state welfare gains from global financial integration that for some regions amount to several times initial wealth.

This paper presents a unified approach to nonlinear and nonstationary time-series analysis for a fairly wide class of linear time variable parameter (TVP) or nonlinear systems. The method theory exploits recursive filtering and fixed interval smoothing algorithms to derive TVP linear model approximations to the nonlinear or nonstationary stochastic system, on the basis of data obtained from the system during planned experiments or passive monitoring exercises. This TVP model includes the State Dependent type of Model (SDM) as a special case, and two particular SDM forms, due to Priestly and Young, are discussed in detail. The paper concludes with three practical examples: the first based on the modelling of data from a simulated nonlinear growth equation; the second concerned with the adaptive forecasting and smoothing of the Box-Jenkins Airline Passenger data; and the third providing a critical appraisal of state dependent modelling applied to the famous Sunspot time-series.

In this article, I suggest that incomplete markets and transaction costs are crucial for explaining the high equity premium and the low risk-free rate. I first demonstrate the failure of the complete frictionless markets model in explaining these return puzzles and then show how introducing incomplete markets and transaction costs can lead to success. Additionally, I explain how these features lead to predictions concerning individual consumptions, wealths, portfolios, and asset market transactions that are in better agreement with the facts than the predictions of the complete frictionless markets model.

This article investigates U.S. interbank relationships before the Civil War using previously unknown data for Pennsylvania banks from 1851 to 1859 that disaggregate the amounts due from other banks by debtor bank. It finds that country banks, banks outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, dealt almost exclusively with financial center banks. Most had a large, highly stable relationship with a single correspondent bank. The location of a country bank’s correspondent was consistent with trade patterns, particularly railroad and canal linkages. Philadelphia banks, in contrast, did not establish correspondent-type banking relationships. Further, Philadelphia’s correspondent banking market was not highly concentrated, and entry was easy.