Falling rates no assurance of homeowner refinancing binge
When the Fed lowers its benchmark policy rate, the reduction is usually reflected in a variety of consumer finance rates, notably mortgages. However, there are reasons to believe that such a reduction might not prompt an increase in the volume of mortgage refinances and prepayment activity as has historically occurred.
August 14, 2025
How sensitive are interest rates to higher federal debt?
The U.S. faces a historically high federal debt-to-GDP ratio, a measure of debt relative to economic output. But how sensitive are interest rates to higher debt?
August 12, 2025
Accounting for interest rate risk: Matching Fed assets to liabilities
In Depth: The Fed has floating-rate liabilities as well as long-lived, zero-interest liabilities. A barbell of floating-rate and long-duration assets would best offset the interest rate risk from these liabilities. Investing in a more diversified mix of durations, while matching the average duration of assets, could be more practical than the barbell approach but would leave a substantial portion of interest rate risk unhedged.
August 07, 2025
Research Department Working Papers
A History of U.S. Tariffs: Quantifying Strategic Trade-Offs in Tariff Policy Design
U.S. tariff policy has historically balanced competing goals—revenue, protection and reciprocity. Policy priorities have shifted over time in response to changing economic and political conditions. Using a calibrated general equilibrium model, this paper illustrates these trade-offs through the lens of tariff Laffer curves.
August 05, 2025
Research Department Working Papers
An Asset-Liability Management Approach to the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet
The Federal Reserve’s liabilities include a mix of floating-rate instruments, such as reserves, and long-duration, non-interest-bearing instruments, such as currency. This paper investigates the implications of an asset-liability management approach to choosing assets to back these liabilities, with a focus on matching the duration of assets and liabilities.
July 03, 2025
Has the Beige Book become disconnected from economic data?
The Federal Reserve's Beige Book, a key tool for identifying U.S. business-cycle shifts, has traditionally aligned with economic data. However, postpandemic, its economic characterizations often appear weaker than what hard data indicated, raising concerns of divergence from official statistics.
May 27, 2025
Monetary policy implementation and the consolidated government balance sheet
This essay examines the trade-offs between different monetary policy implementation methods through the lens of the consolidated government balance sheet and income statement
April 15, 2025
Research Department Working Papers
Tempting FAIT: Flexible Average Inflation Targeting and the Post-COVID U.S. Inflation Surge
In August 2020, the Federal Reserve replaced Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) with Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (FAIT), introducing make-up strategies that allow inflation to temporarily exceed the 2% target. Using a synthetic control approach, this paper estimates that FAIT raised CPI inflation by about 1 percentage point and core CPI inflation by 0.5 percentage points, suggesting a moderate impact net of food and energy and a largely temporary effect. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis of a steeper-than-expected post-pandemic Phillips curve in the New Keynesian model.
April 09, 2025
Globalization Institute Working Paper
Living Up to Expectations: The Effectiveness of Forward Guidance and Inflation Dynamics Post-Global Financial Crisis
This paper studies the effectiveness of forward guidance when central banks face private agents with heterogeneous expectations allowing for a degree of bounded rationality.
April 03, 2025
Strong U.S. employment driven by sectors less sensitive to business cycles
The U.S. has enjoyed strong payroll job gains in the past couple of years despite generally restrictive monetary policy. The sectoral composition of employment reveals job growth has been concentrated in areas that are the least sensitive to national employment fluctuations over the business cycle.
April 01, 2025