Financial Technologies and the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy Transmission
Iftekhar Hasan, Boreum Kwak, Xiang Li
Abstract
This study investigates whether and how financial technologies (FinTech) influence the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission. We use an interacted panel vector autoregression model to explore how the effects of monetary policy shocks change with regional-level FinTech adoption. Results indicate that FinTech adoption generally mitigates the transmission of monetary policy to real GDP, consumer prices, bank loans, and housing prices, with the most significant impact observed in the weakened transmission to bank loan growth. The relaxed financial constraints, regulatory arbitrage, and intensified competition are the possible mechanisms underlying the mitigated transmission.
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Konjunktur aktuell: Export und privater Konsum schwach – Deutschland wartet auf den Aufschwung
Konjunktur aktuell,
No. 4,
2023
Abstract
Die Weltwirtschaft verliert zum Ende des Jahres 2023 weiter an Schwung. Der durch den weltweiten Inflationsschub ausgelöste restriktive Schwenk der Geldpolitik drückt über höhere Finanzierungskosten vielerorts die Güternachfrage. Im nächsten Jahr dürfte die Weltwirtschaft wieder etwas anziehen. Die deutsche Wirtschaft ist nach Ende der Pandemie nicht wieder auf ihren alten Wachstumspfad zurückgekehrt. Das Verarbeitenden Gewerbe hat an Wettbewerbsfähigkeit eingebüßt, und die Weltnachfrage nach Industriegütern ist zurzeit schwach. Zudem ist die Inflation immer noch hoch, und die Realeinkommen sind längere Zeit über zurückgegangen. Die geldpolitische Straffung hat die Finanzierungsbedingungen verschlechtert, was besonders die Bauwirtschaft belastet. Das Bruttoinlandsprodukt wird 2023 wohl um 0,3% sinken und im kommenden Jahr um 0,5% expandieren.
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The Importance of Credit Demand for Business Cycle Dynamics
Gregor von Schweinitz
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 21,
2023
Abstract
This paper contributes to a better understanding of the important role that credit demand plays for credit markets and aggregate macroeconomic developments as both a source and transmitter of economic shocks. I am the first to identify a structural credit demand equation together with credit supply, aggregate supply, demand and monetary policy in a Bayesian structural VAR. The model combines informative priors on structural coefficients and multiple external instruments to achieve identification. In order to improve identification of the credit demand shocks, I construct a new granular instrument from regional mortgage origination.
I find that credit demand is quite elastic with respect to contemporaneous macroeconomic conditions, while credit supply is relatively inelastic. I show that credit supply and demand shocks matter for aggregate fluctuations, albeit at different times: credit demand shocks mostly drove the boom prior to the financial crisis, while credit supply shocks were responsible during and after the crisis itself. In an out-of-sample exercise, I find that the Covid pandemic induced a large expansion of credit demand in 2020Q2, which pushed the US economy towards a sustained recovery and helped to avoid a stagflationary scenario in 2022.
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The Labor Effects of Judicial Bias in Bankruptcy
Aloisio Araujo, Rafael Ferreira, Spyridon Lagaras, Flavio Moraes, Jacopo Ponticelli, Margarita Tsoutsoura
Journal of Financial Economics,
No. 2,
2023
Abstract
We study the effect of judicial bias favoring firm continuation in bankruptcy on the labor market outcomes of employees by exploiting the random assignment of cases across courts in the State of São Paulo in Brazil. Employees of firms assigned to courts that favor firm continuation are more likely to stay with their employer, but they earn, on average, lower wages three to five years after bankruptcy. We discuss several potential mechanisms that can rationalize this result, and provide evidence that imperfect information about outside options in the local labor market and adjustment costs associated with job change play an important role.
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Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation
Elisabeth Kempf, Mancy Luo, Larissa Schäfer, Margarita Tsoutsoura
Journal of Financial Economics,
No. 2,
2023
Abstract
Does investors’ political ideology shape international capital allocation? We provide evidence from two settings—syndicated corporate loans and equity mutual funds—to show ideological alignment with foreign governments affects the cross-border capital allocation by U.S. institutional investors. Ideological alignment on both economic and social issues plays a role. Our empirical strategy ensures direct economic effects of foreign elections or government ties between countries are not driving the result. Ideological distance between countries also explains variation in bilateral investment. Combined, our findings imply ideological alignment is an important, omitted factor in models of international capital allocation.
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What Does Codetermination Do?
Simon Jäger, Shakked Noy, Benjamin Schoefer
ILR Review,
No. 4,
2022
Abstract
The authors provide a comprehensive overview of codetermination, that is, worker representation in firms’ governance and management. The available micro evidence points to zero or small positive effects of codetermination on worker and firm outcomes and leaves room for moderate positive effects on productivity, wages, and job stability. The authors also present new country-level, general-equilibrium event studies of codetermination reforms between the 1960s and 2010s, finding no effects on aggregate economic outcomes or the quality of industrial relations. They offer three explanations for the institution’s limited impact. First, existing codetermination laws convey little authority to workers. Second, countries with codetermination laws have high baseline levels of informal worker voice. Third, codetermination laws may interact with other labor market institutions, such as union representation and collective bargaining. The article closes with a discussion of the implications for recent codetermination proposals in the United States.
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Paying Outsourced Labor: Direct Evidence from Linked Temp Agency-Worker-Client Data
Andres Drenik, Simon Jäger, Pascuel Plotkin, Benjamin Schoefer
Review of Economics and Statistics,
No. 1,
2023
Abstract
We estimate how much firms differentiate pay premia between regular and outsourced workers in temp agency work arrangements. We leverage unique Argentinian administrative data that feature links between user firms (the workplaces where temp workers perform their labor) and temp agencies (their formal employers). We estimate that a high-wage user firm that pays a regular worker a 10% premium pays a temp worker on average only a 4.9% premium, compared to what these workers would earn in a low-wage user firm in their respective work arrangements—the midpoint between the benchmarks for insiders (one) and the competitive spot-labor market (zero).
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Marginal Jobs and Job Surplus: A Test of the Efficiency of Separations
Simon Jäger, Benjamin Schoefer, Josef Zweimüller
Review of Economic Studies,
No. 3,
2023
Abstract
We present a test of Coasean theories of efficient separations. We study a cohort of jobs from the introduction through the repeal of a large age- and region-specific unemployment benefit extension in Austria. In the treatment group, 18.5% fewer jobs survive the program period. According to the Coasean view, the destroyed marginal jobs had low joint surplus. Hence, after the repeal, the treatment survivors should be more resilient than the ineligible control group survivors. Strikingly, the two groups instead exhibit identical post-repeal separation behavior. We provide, and find suggestive evidence consistent with, an alternative model in which wage rigidity drives the inefficient separation dynamics.
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How to Talk Down Your Stock Performance
Andreas Barth, Sasan Mansouri, Fabian Wöbbeking, Severin Zörgiebel
SSRN Discussion Papers,
2020
Abstract
We process the natural language of verbal firm disclosures in order to study the use of context specific language or jargon and its impact on financial performance. We observe that, within the Q&A of earnings conference calls, managers use less jargon in responses to tougher questions, and after a quarter of bad economic success. Moreover, markets interpret the lack of precise information as a bad signal: we find lower cumulative abnormal returns and a higher implied volatility following earnings calls where managers use less jargon. These results support the argument that context specific language or jargon helps to efficiently and precisely transfer information.
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Deindustrialisierung: Schreckgespenst oder notwendiger Schritt im Strukturwandel der deutschen Wirtschaft?
Oliver Falck, Steffen Müller, Monika Schnitzer, et al.
ifo Schnelldienst,
No. 3,
2023
Abstract
Die Ereignisse der letzten Jahre haben die Debatte über eine Deindustrialisierung Deutschlands auf die Tagesordnung gesetzt. Die Corona-Pandemie, Unsicherheiten im Umgang mit China und der Krieg in der Ukraine belasten die deutsche Wirtschaft stark. Unterbrochene Lieferketten, fehlende Rohstoffe und vor allem die in ungeahnte Höhen gestiegenen Energiepreise verunsichern die Unternehmen. Aufgrund deutlich günstigerer Energiekosten und der Subventionspolitik in den USA gibt es Befürchtungen, dass insbesondere energieintensive Unternehmen abwandern und der Industriestandort Deutschland an Wettbewerbsfähigkeit verliert. Ist diese Sorge berechtigt, und wie kann die Politik gegensteuern?
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