The purpose of this thesis is to examine how quantitative easing in the United States works through the transmission channels to establish a positive short-run effect on inflation. The research will be based on a time series analysis covering the period 2006-2015 with data collected on a monthly basis. As quantitative easing is a new unconventional monetary policy, we want to contribute to the understanding of its short-run effects on inflation. Using a distributed lag model, we conclude that quantitative easing is positively related to inflation in the short-run. The U.S. short-term interest rate, the federal funds rate, is included in the estimated model to see if it works when quantitative easing has been implemented. Furthermore, crude oil and the USD/EUR exchange rate is included as control variables to reduce the effects of exogenous factors in the estimated model. The regression results of quantitative easing and the federal funds rate showed statistical significance against inflation, however with a very small effect, respectively. In the final section we discuss the limitations of this thesis and future research possibilities.

Prior studies examining the impact of monetary policy instruments on the equity market have produced mixed results. This problem is important to address because of the substantial impact of monetary policy on the economy and economic resource allocation via the equity market. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of change in money supply (M2), change in Federal Funds Rate (FFR), and change in Federal Funds Futures (FFF) on the expected rate of returns of publicly traded companies while controlling for the rate of return of the whole equity market and size of the sampled companies. The capital asset pricing model formed the theoretical foundation. The research questions addressed the significance of the monetary policy instruments M2, FFR, and FFF on the expected rate of returns of publicly traded companies. The research design was ex post facto. To answer the research questions, annual data were collected for the period of January 2005 through January 2015 for the rate of return on the overall equity market, rate of return on stocks of 90 publicly traded companies, size of the sample companies, M2, FFR, and FFF. A multiple regression showed a positive effect of market rate of return and company size, a positive moderation effect of M2, and a negative moderation and mediation effect of FFR and FFF on the expected rate of returns of publicly traded companies (p < .05). These findings could have positive social change implications in that they may help individual and institutional investors in their investment decision making, leading to better allocation of economic resources. The findings may also assist monetary policy authorities in assessing the impact of monetary policy on the equity market and thus preempting stock market crashes.

My dissertation topic is on the impact of changes in the monetary policy interest rate target on bank distress and systemic risk in the U.S. banking system. The financial crisis of 2007-2009 had devastating effects on the banking system worldwide. The feeble performance of financial institutions during the crisis heightened the necessity of understanding systemic risk exhibited the critical role of monitoring the banking system, and strongly necessitated quantification of the risks to which banks are exposed, for incorporation in policy formulation. In the aftermath of the crisis, US bank regulators focused on overhauling the then existing regulatory framework in order to provide comprehensive capital buffers against bank losses. In this context, the Basel Committee proposed in 2011, the Basel III framework in order to strengthen the regulatory capital structure as a buffer against bank losses. The reform under Basel III framework aimed at raising the quality and the quantity of regulatory capital base and enhancing the risk coverage of the capital structure. Separately, US bank regulators adopted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to implement stress tests on systemically important bank holding companies (SIBs). Concerns about system-wide distress have broadened the debate on banking regulation towards a macro prudential approach. In this context, limiting bank risk and systemic risk has become a prolific research field at the crossroads of banking, macroeconomics, econometrics, and network theory over the last decade (Kuritzkes et al., 2005; Goodhart and Sergoviano, 2008; Geluk et al., 2009; Acharya et al., 2010, 2017; Tarashev et al., 2010; Huang et al., 2012; Browless and Engle, 2012, 2017 and Cummins, 2014). The European Central Bank (ECB) (2010) defines systemic risk as a risk of financial instability “so widespread that it impairs the functioning of a financial system to the point where economic growth and welfare suffer materially.” While US bank regulators and policy-makers have moved to strengthen the regulatory framework in the post-crisis period in order to prevent another financial crisis, a growing recent line of research has suggested that there is a significant link between monetary policy and bank distress (Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist, 1999; Borio and Zhu, 2008; Gertler and Kiyotaki, 2010; Delis and Kouretas, 2010; Gertler and Karadi, 2011; Delis et al., 2017). In my research, I examine the link between the monetary policy and bank distress. In the first chapter, I investigate the impact of the federal funds rate (FFR) changes on the banking system distress between 2001 and 2013 within an unrestricted vector auto-regression model. The Fed used FFR as a primary policy tool before the financial crisis of 2007-2009, but focused on quantitative easing (QE) during the crisis and post-crisis periods when the FFR hit the zero bound. I use the Taylor rule rate (TRR, 1993) as an “implied policy rate”, instead of the FFR, to account for the impact of QE on the economy. The base model of distress includes three macroeconomic indicators—real GDP growth, inflation, and TRR—and a systemic risk indicator (Expected capital shortfall (ES)). I consider two model extensions; (i) I include a measure of bank lending standards to account for the changes in the systemic risk due to credit tightening, (ii) I replace inflation with house price growth rate to see if the results remain robust. Three main results can be drawn. First, the impulse response functions (IRFs) show that raising the monetary policy rate contributed to insolvency problems for the U.S. banks, with a one percentage point increase in the rate raising the banking systemic stress by 1.6 and 0.8 percentage points, respectively, in the base and extend models. Second, variance decomposition (VDs) analysis shows that up to ten percent of error variation in systemic risk indicator can be attributed to innovations in the policy rate in the extended model. Third, my results supplement the view that policy rate hikes led to housing bubble burst and contributed to the financial crisis of 2007-2009. This is an example for how monetary policy-making gets more complex and must be conducted with utmost caution if there is a bubble in the economy. In the second chapter, I examine the prevalence and asymmetry of the effects on bank distress from positive and negative shocks to the target fed fund rate (FFR) in the period leading to the financial crisis (2001-2008). A panel model with three blocks of control variables is used. The blocks include: positive/negative FFR shocks, macroeconomic drivers, and bank balance sheet indicators. A distress indicator similar to Texas Ratio is used to proxy distress. Shocks to FFR are defined along the lines suggested by Morgan (1993). Three main results are obtained. First, FFR shocks, either positive or negative, raise bank distress over the following year. Second, the magnitudes of the effects from positive and negative shocks are unequal (asymmetric); a 100 bps positive (negative) shock raises the bank distress indicator (scaled from 0 to 1) by 9 bps (3 bps) over the next year. Put differently, after a 100 bps positive (negative) shock, the probability of bankruptcy rises from 10% to 19% (13%). Third, expanding operations into non-banking activities by FHCs does not benefit them in terms of distress due to unanticipated changes in the FFR as FFR shocks (positive or negative) create similar levels of distress for BHCs and FHCs. In the third chapter, I explore the systemic risk contributions of U.S. bank holding companies (BHCs) from 2001 to 2015 by using the expected shortfall approach. Developed by analogy with the component expected shortfall concept, I decompose the aggregate systemic risk, as measured by expected shortfall, into several subgroups of banks by using publicly available balance sheet data to define the probability of bank default. The risk measure, thus, encompasses the entire universe of banks. I find that concentration of assets in a smaller number of larger banks raises systemic risk. The systemic risk contribution of banks designated as SIFIs increased sharply during the financial crisis and reached 74% at the end of 2015. Two-thirds of this risk contribution is attributed to the four largest banks in the U.S.: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo. I also find that diversifying business operations by expanding into nontraditional operations does not reduce the systemic risk contribution of financial holding companies (FHCs). In general, FHCs are individually riskier than BHCs despite their more diversified basket of products; FHCs contribute a disproportionate amount to systemic risk given their size, all else being equal. I believe monetary policy-making in the last decade carries many lessons for policy makers. Particularly, the link between the monetary policy target rate and bank distress and systemic risk is an interesting topic by all accounts due to its implications and challenges (explained in more detail in first and second chapters). The literature studying the relation between bank distress and monetary policy is fairly small but developing fast. The models I investigate in my work are simple in many ways but they may serve as a basis for more sophisticated models. / Economics

Central banks use a series of relatively small interest rate changes in adjusting their monetary policy stance. This persistence in interest rate changes is well documented by empirical monetary policy reaction functions that feature a large estimated coefficient for the lagged interest rate. The two hypotheses that explain the size of this large estimated coefficient are monetary policy inertia and serially correlated macro shocks. In the first part of my dissertation, I show that the effect of inertia on the Federal Reserve’s monthly funds rate adjustment is only moderate, and smaller than suggested by previous studies. In the second part, I present evidence that the temporal aggregation of interest rates puts an upward bias on the size of the estimated coefficient for the lagged interest rate. The third part of my dissertation is inspired by recent developments in the housing market and the resulting effect on the overall economy. In this third essay, we show that high loan-to-value mortgage borrowing reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy.

Inflation expectations have been of great interest to economists because they predict how agents in an economy set prices and react to changes in various macroeconomic variables. The existence of Keynesian liquidity traps in Japan and the United States have helped emphasize the importance of inflation expectations, especially when monetary policy is rendered ineffective and there is almost perfect substitutability between money and bonds due to the zero bound condition of interest rates. Given the canonical theories of rational and adaptive expectations, this paper will use a simple model of the economy to measure the effect of various macroeconomic variables on the formation of inflation expectations. It will test to see how consumers, economists and the market measure and forecast inflation both in the short and in the long run.

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the implementation of quantitative easing (QE) and quantitative tightening (QT) in the United States has detracted from the integrity of the country’s macroeconomic environment. In other words, does QE impact macroeconomic stability? Then, evaluate implications and externalities of stability as they relate to sustainability efforts. QE and QT are relatively new phenomena, understanding their effects and implications for the greater economy is a worthwhile endeavor, not least because QE is a current practice of so many central banks internationally. This study has two parallel investigations; first, a time series analysis conducted with a VAR model investigating the relationship of QE/QT usage by the Federal Reserve (Fed) on the macroeconomic stability of the United States. The data used in this study includes 242 monthly observations spanning January 2003 - February 2023. The second, is an OLS regression analysis evaluating whether macroeconomic stability is potentially correlated with sustainability efforts. For this study, 23 annual observations spanning 1995 – 2017 were used. Due in part to the general unavailability of genuine progress indicator (GPI) data. Based on the analysis conducted using a VAR model at lag t-4, QE has a positive relationship with Producer Price Index (PPI) and Federal Funds Rate (FFR). This is in accord with previous empirical literature on the subject. However, the second path of discovery failed to yield significant results with regard to the link between macroeconomic stability and sustainability efforts. Mention of this study’s limitations as well as avenues for future research can be found in the conclusion of this study.

Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka om Riksbankens tillkännagivanden av reporänteförändringar har en effekt på den svenska aktiemarknaden, samt om det råder skillnader mellan fyra branscher i Stockholmsbörsen. Studien syftar även till att undersöka om det kan urskönjas en skillnad mellan branschernas räntekänslighet. Metod: Undersökningen baseras på en eventstudie med ett estimeringsfönster på 60 dagar före tillkännagivandet av reporänteförändringen, och ett eventfönster på 11 dagar. Urvalet består samtliga reporänteförändringar mellan 2001-2015, och av följande branscher, Finans &amp; Fastighet, Industrivaror, Hälsovård, Teknologi, som är inhämtade från Stockholmsbörsen. Teori: Den teoretiska utgångspunkten i studien är teorin om den effektiva marknadshypotesen och teorier om reporäntan. Det presenteras även teorier om diskonteringsräntans effekt samt pris- och inkomstelasticitet. Finansiell psykologi, som är en invändning mot effektiva marknadshypotesen, redogörs dessutom tillsammans med tidigare forskning som har legat till grund för undersökningen. Slutsats: Studien resulterar i att det inte råder ett entydigt samband mellan Riksbankens tillkännagivanden av reporänteförändringar och den svenska aktiekursen. Resultatet illustrerar att det råder en skillnad mellan de valda branschernas räntekänslighet. Det går inte direkt att fastställa att den svenska marknaden är effektiv. / Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine if Sweden’s central bank announcements of the federal funds rate have an effect on the Swedish stock market, and whether there are differences between four sectors of the Stockholm Stock Exchange. The study also aims to investigate if there is a difference between the sectors interest rate sensitivity.  Method: The study is based on an event study with an estimation window of 60 days prior the announcement of the federal fund rate, and an event window of 11 days. The sample consists of all the announcement of the federal funds rate between 2001- 2015 and the following sectors, Finance &amp; Real Estate, Industrials, Healthcare, Technology, who are acquired from the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Theory: The theoretical basis in this study is the theory of the efficient market hypothesis and theories about the federal funds rate. An introduction to theories about the discount rate and price and income elasticity is also presented in the study. Financial psychology, which is a statement of opposition against the efficient market hypothesis, is also introduced together with previous research which the examination is based on. Conclusion: The results show that there is no unambiguous correlation between Sweden’s central bank announcements of the federal funds rate and the Swedish stock price. The result illustrate that there is a difference between the selected sectors interest rate sensitivity. In summary, it’s established that the Swedish stock market cannot be seen as an efficient market.

Special Purpose acquisition company (SPAC) är ett skalbolag grundat av investerare med det enda syftet att samla kapital genom en börsintroduktion för att senare förvärva ett annat bolag. Tidigare empirisk forskning för SPAC har fokuserat på egenskaperna hos SPAC bolagen samt deras långsiktiga och kortsiktiga avkastning. Denna studie tar en kvantitativ ansats och syftar till att undersöka vilka underliggande makroekonomiska faktorer har bidragit till en ökning i antalet SPAC bolag. Detta undersöks genom en linjär regressionsanalys där studien undersöker korrelationen mellan olika variabler. Studien syftar även till att se om de underliggande makroekonomiska faktorer bakom ökningen av traditionella börsintroduktioner är detsamma som de bakom SPAC. All data för SPAC, makroekonomiska variabler och börsintroduktioner har samlats in genom olika databaser som Yahoo Finance och Nasdaq. Studiens resultat visar på att vissa makroekonomiska variabler som testats för en korrelation har en påverkan på antalet SPAC och börsintroduktioner medans vissa variabler inte bevisade någon påverkan. Variabeln som visade starkast korrelation med antalet SPAC är den generella marknadens avkastning där det är tydligt att om den generella marknaden är stark så är viljan att göra en börsnotering större Studien fann även att de makroekonomiska variabler bakom ökningen av antalet SPAC och vanliga börsnoteringar inte skiljer sig åt. / This paper is written in Swedish. A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) is a shell company set up by investors with the sole purpose of raising money through an IPO to eventually acquire another company. Past empirical research on Special purpose acquisition companies has mostly focused on the characteristics of the SPACs and long term returns as well as the short term returns. This study takes a quantitative approach and aims to examine whether underlying macroeconomic factors have contributed to the increase in SPAC companies. This is done by a linear regression analysis that tests for correlations between different variables. The study also aims to see if the underlying macroeconomic factors behind the increase of traditional IPOs are the same as those behind SPACs. All data regarding SPACs, IPOs and the macroeconomic factors were collected from different databases and websites such as Yahoo finance and NASDAQ. The results from this study show that some of the macroeconomic factors which were tested for a correlation indeed have a positive impact on the number of SPACs and IPOs and some did not. The variable that showed the strongest correlation was the performance of the general market and it is clear that when the general market is strong the willingness to go public increases. The study also finds that the macroeconomic variables behind the increase in the number of SPACs and IPOs do not differ.