Abstract
A repurchase agreement (repo) is a source of cash and collateral. We document that the money market is more segmented when the collateral motive prevails. Two crucial aspects of the central ...bank framework lead to this disconnect: banks’ access to the central bank’s deposit facility and assets’ eligibility for quantitative easing (QE). We show that repo rates lent by banks with access to the deposit facility and secured by QE eligible assets are more collateral-driven and disconnected from funding-based money market rates. Our results are relevant for different monetary policies and have suggestive implications for the monetary policy pass-through.
Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.
Abstract
U.S. states increasingly require identification to vote—an ostensible attempt to deter fraud that prompts complaints of selective disenfranchisement. Using a difference-in-differences design ...on a panel data set with 1.6 billion observations, 2008–2018, we find that the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation. These results hold through a large number of specifications. Our most demanding specification controls for state, year, and voter fixed effects, along with state and voter time-varying controls. Based on this specification, we obtain point estimates of −0.1 percentage points for effects both on overall registration and turnout (with 95% confidence intervals of −2.3; 2.1 percentage points and −3.0; 2.8 percentage points, respectively), and +1.4 percentage points for the effect on the turnout of nonwhite voters relative to whites (with a 95% confidence interval of −0.5; 3.2 percentage points). The lack of negative impact on voter turnout cannot be attributed to voters’ reaction against the laws, measured by campaign contributions and self-reported political engagement. However, the likelihood that nonwhite voters were contacted by a campaign increases by 4.7 percentage points, suggesting that parties’ mobilization might have offset modest effects of the laws on the participation of ethnic minorities. Finally, strict ID requirements have no effect on fraud, actual or perceived. Overall, our findings suggest that efforts to improve elections may be better directed at other reforms.
This study explores municipal cost behavior during periods of financial crisis and strict financial sustainability legislation. The study employees Anderson, Banker, and Janakiraman approach on a ...data sample of 48,096 observations from Spanish municipalities for the period 2008-2018. The results suggest that during this period municipality total, service provision and investment expenses exhibit anti-sticky behavior; that is the cost response to an activity level decrease is greater than its response in the case of an activity increase. After the adoption of the financial sustainability legislation this behavior is more intense for all expense categories. Moreover, in periods preceding elections the anti-stickiness trend is mitigated, while size appears to play a role as well, with larger municipalities showing greater anti-stickiness. Eventually, it appears that resource adjustment motivations during crisis periods, under law enforcement and before elections, play a key role in municipal asymmetric cost behavior.
This article provides a greater understanding of the service-oriented government (SOG) reforms that China carried out at the central level in 2008, 2013, and 2018. These reforms involved two common ...post-NPM structural measures - namely, super-ministries and cross-ministerial networks or leading groups. Using a mythical, an instrumental, and a cultural perspective, this article examines how SOG reforms were carried out and enquires into the relevance of "Chinese characteristics." Our analysis shows that China's SOG reforms represent quite a complex and hybrid pattern with a dual orientation of service value and coordination action. The CPC's leadership of government reform and major work in all areas are fundamental characteristics of China's socialist administrative system.
Abstract
We estimate the effects of the introduction of a large cash transfer programme on support for the ruling populist party in Poland. We exploit the variation at the municipal level in the ...annual cash transfer amount received per capita, and use a difference‐in‐differences research design to study the electoral effects of the transfer. Our results show that a cash transfer amount of $100 per capita translated into an increase in the vote share for the ruling party of nearly two percentage points. One‐third of additional votes came from new voters coming off the sidelines, and the remaining electoral gains were due to voters who had previously voted for other parties. The effects of the programme are persistent, as we see no decrease in the magnitude of effects seven years after the introduction.
We use exogenously determined, long-distance relocations of U.S. Army soldiers to investigate the impact of moving on marriage. In an event study analysis, we find that marriage rates increase ...sharply around the time of a move. Reduced-form exposure analysis reveals that an additional move over a five-year period increases the likelihood of marriage by 14 percent, a magnitude similar to those in observational data on civilians. Moves increase childbearing by a similar magnitude, suggesting that marriages induced by a move are formed with long-term intentions. We explore implications of our findings for theories of marriage related to search, bargaining, and decision-making costs.
On June 1, 2018, the European Central Bank (ECB) celebrated its 20th anniversary. This paper provides a comprehensive view of the ECB’s monetary policy over these two decades. The first section gives ...a chronological account of the macroeconomic and monetary policy developments in the euro area since the adoption of the euro in 1999, going through four cyclical phases “conditioning” ECB monetary policy. We describe the monetary policy decisions from the ECB’s perspective and against the background of its evolving monetary policy strategy and framework. We also highlight a number of the key, critical issues that were the subject of debate. The second section contains various assessments. We analyze the achievement of the price stability mandate and developments in the ECB’s credibility, and we also investigate the ECB’s interest rate decisions through the lens of a simple empirical interest rate reaction function. Finally, we present the ECB’s framework for thinking about nonstandard monetary policy measures and review the evidence on their effectiveness. One of the main themes of the paper is how the ECB utilized its monetary policy to respond to the challenges posed by the European twin financial and sovereign debt crises and the subsequent slow economic recovery, making use of its relatively wide range of instruments, defining new ones where necessary, and developing the strategic underpinnings of its policy framework.
This paper explores the relationship between common institutional ownership and corporate misconduct. Empirical evidence indicates that common institutional blockholders (institutional blockholders ...with multiple blockholdings), with advantages in information, experience and resources, can effectively inhibit corporate misconduct. Furthermore, the inhibitory effect is stronger in firms prone to commit misconduct. Empirical results also support the role of state blockholders with multiple blockholdings and common institutional blockholders with high ownership proportions in restraining corporate misconduct. This paper contributes to the heated debate on the economic implications of common ownership and provides additional evidence for the role of common blockholders in Chinese capital markets.
This paper presents a broad retrospective evaluation of mergers and merger decisions in markets dominated by multisided digital platforms. First, we document almost 300 acquisitions carried out by ...three major tech companies—Amazon, Facebook, and Google—between 2008 and 2018. We cluster target companies on their area of economic activity providing suggestive evidence on the strategies behind these mergers. Second, we discuss the features of digital markets that create new challenges for competition policy. By using relevant case studies as illustrative examples, we discuss theories of harm that have been used or, alternatively, could have been formulated by authorities in these cases. Finally, we retrospectively examine two important merger cases, Facebook/Instagram and Google/Waze, providing a systematic assessment of the theories of harm considered by the UK competition authorities as well as evidence on the evolution of the market after the transactions were approved. We discuss whether the competition authority performed complete and careful analyses to foresee the competitive consequences of the investigated mergers and whether a more effective merger control regime can be achieved within the current legal framework.
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