Geoffrey M. B. Tootell

Identifying the Macroeconomic Effect of Loan Supply Shocks

Evidence of an operative credit channel has been inconclusive. The inability to clearly distinguish the effects of shocks to loan supply from those to loan demand has made it difficult to quantify the importance of this transmission mechanism to the economy. This paper provides an innovative approach to identifying loan supply shocks that enables us to show that such disturbances have had economically important effects on the U.S. economy over the past two decades. We provide three different pieces of evidence that confirm that loan supply shocks have been successfully isolated from shifts in loan demand: Our measure is particularly important for explaining inventory movements, the component of GDP most likely to be sensitive to shifts in bank loan supply; the effect is present even during periods of strong loan demand; and the effect does not dissipate quickly, as would be the case for demand shocks.

Redlining, the Community Reinvestment Act, and Private Mortgage Insurance

This paper examines whether neighborhood racial or income composition influences a lenders treatment of mortgage applications. Recent studies have found little evidence of differential treatment based on either the racial or income composition of the neighborhood, once the specification accounts for neighborhood risk factors. This paper suggests that lenders may favor applicants from CRA-protected neighborhoods if they obtain Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) and that this behavior may mask lender redlining of low income and minority neighborhoods. For loan applicants who are not covered by PMI, this paper finds strong evidence that applications for units in low-income neighborhoods are less likely to be approved, and some evidence that applications for units in minority neighborhoods are less likey to be approved, regardless of the race of the applicant. This pattern is not visible in earlier studies because lenders appear to treat applications from these neighborhoods more favorably when the applicant obtains PMI.

Does the federal reserve possess an exploitable informational advantage

This paper provides evidence that the Federal Reserve has an informational advantage over the public that can be exploited to improve activist monetary policy. The informational advantage derives from the Fed?s role as a bank supervisor, and it is shown to be of sufficient duration to be effective in guiding activist monetary policy, even in simple rational expectations models. The informational superiority does not result from the Fed having earlier access to publicly released data about the financial condition of banks. Instead, this informational advantage is generated by confidential supervisory knowledge about troubled, non-publicly traded banks. As a result, this information can remain confidential for an extended period of time because these banks do not have an incentive to fully disclose publicly the extent of their financial troubles, and, since they are not publicly traded, are not required to do so. The improvement in forecasts using this confidential information is both statistically significant and economically important, providing a potential justification for activist monetary policy.

Whose monetary policy is it anyway

Abstract The rising inflation of the 1970s inspired substantial theoretical analysis of the goals of central banks. In models with time-inconsistent monetary policy, central bankers are assumed to produce positive equilibrium inflation because they target an unemployment rate below the NAIRU. Ball (1995) notes that these models could explain the level of inflation but not its frequent and persistent movements. Although real shocks, as in Rogoff (1985) , can produce temporary changes in inflation, Ball explains the recurrent and persistent movements in inflation throughout the past 40 years with random changes in the preferences of the monetary policymakers, occurring even at the frequency of FOMC meetings. This paper provides empirical support that shifts in goals can indeed occur at this frequency. However, it is not necessarily the tastes of the policymakers that are changing; the FOMCs reading of the policy desired by the public can evolve over time, and if the FOMC is not completely goal-independent, it will accommodate these changes.

Understanding the 'Job-Loss Recovery'

This Public Policy Brief presents analysis of the labor market by economic research staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. It is based on materials originally presented to the Board of Directors of the Boston Fed on April 8, 2004, with selective updates incorporating data reported in early June. Contributors to this brief include David DeRemer, Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, Kristina Johnson, Jane Sneddon Little, Radoslav Raykov, Scott Schuh, Geoffrey M.B. Tootell, Robert Triest, and Anne van Grondelle. Views expressed in this brief do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve System.

Do commodity price spikes cause long-term inflation?

This public policy brief examines the relationship between trend inflation and commodity price increases and finds that evidence from recent decades supports the notion that commodity price changes do not affect the long-run inflation rate. Evidence from earlier decades suggests that effects on inflation expectations and wages played a key role in whether commodity price movements altered trend inflation. This brief is based on a memo to the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston as background to a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.