This paper examines how the level and volatility of interest rates affect the stock return of banks using a GARCH-M model. Data is collected for Swedish and Danish banks stock return and interest rates on monthly basis for the period January 2000 to April 2018. The effects of interest rates on banks stock return is tested by two hypotheses, if the volatility of interest rates affects the volatility of the stock returns and if the level of the interest rate affects the excess return. The excess returns are also tested for significance of its own conditional variance in form of the mean term in the GARCH-M model. The results show that the volatility of interest rates has a significant effect on the excess return of the bank stocks while the level of the interest rate does not have a significant effect, the mean term is not significant, implying that some of the risk is not priced by an increased risk premium. The paper also discusses how the quantitative easing activities that has been performed by central banks could affect the bank stocks sensitivity to interest rates changes.

This thesis analyzed and estimated the impact of the March 1, 2018 loan to income amortization requirement on residential real estate prices in Sweden. A four variables vector autoregressive model (VAR) was used to study the relationships between residential real estate prices, GDP, real mortgage rate and consumer price index over a time period from 2005 to 2017. First, a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model was used to test how a structural innovation in the error term for real mortgage rate affected residential real estate prices. Secondly, an unconditional forecast from our reduced VAR was produced to estimate post 2017 price growth of the Swedish housing market. The impulse response function results stand in contradiction to economic intuition i.e. the price puzzle problem. The unconditional forecast indicates that the housing market will enter a period with slower price growth post 2017, which are in line with previous research. This thesis vector autoregressive model can give meaningful results with regard to trend forecasts but with regard to precise statements as anticipating drastic price depreciation, it falls short. We recommend the use of reduced VAR forecasting with regard to the Swedish housing market.

In the euro area interest rates have dropped low for almost a decade now and it is anticipated to endure in the years to come. This creates challenges for banks performance, therefore this paper observes whether interest rates effect bank profitability. Further investigating whether loan growth should be an important factor to also consider in the model. We use data for 72 banks from various countries in the Eurozone for the period 2006-2016 and conduct a panel data analysis on this data. Results show that loan growth is not significant and is not a vital component to be included in the model. We find a negative significant relationship between the spread which compromises of long-term deposit rates minus the interest rate controlled by the European Central Bank. This suggests that, a decrease in interest rates can and had eroded bank profitability in the euro area.

Até o ano de 1964, o Brasil enfrentou sérias adversidades no campo econômico, não só pela ausência de tradição exportadora e cultural mas, também, pelas limitações da estrutura operacional do mercado de câmbio. Com o advento da Lei 4595, de 31.12.64, extingue-se a Sumoc, cria-se o Banco Central, estabelecem-se condições para o Banco do Brasil impulsionar as suas atividades comerciais e normatiza-se o funcionamento do mercado de capitais, circunstância que acenava como sinal dos novos tempos.De lá para cá, o país, a acompanhar a torrente dos tempos modernos, organizou o sistema financeiro nacional e empreendeu forte escalada na área internacional. A criação de agências bancárias no exterior estimulou o aprendizado de novos conhecimentos e a aquisição de técnicas operacionais sofisticadas, igualando-nos, no particular, às nações mais desenvolvidas do mundo. Tais aspectos são destacados no presente trabalho, inicialmente, por meio de uma abordagem do mercado de câmbio brasileiro, sua estrutura em termos organizacionais e o seu funcionamento em termos operacionais. De outra parte, ao relatarmos, de forma retrospectiva, a política cambial brasileira, desde a Segunda Guerra Mundial aos dias de hoje, enfatizamos as inúmeras tentativas de acerto na condução das políticas monetária e cambial, as quais sempre tiveram o propósito de debelar o processo inflacionário e o atingimento de superávits comerciais para aliviar o BP do país. Um assunto, no entanto, percorre toda a nossa análise e se constitui no tema central desta Dissertação: as taxas cambiais como produto de políticas cambiais equivocadas, a sua relação direta com as taxas de juros e os seus efeitos deletérios nas contas públicas. Neste ponto, procedemos a um estudo dos diversos planos econômicos implantados na economia, com destaque para o único que efetivamente teve sucesso na finalidade a que inicialmente se destinou: o Plano Real. A prática demonstrou, todavia, que há hoje um indisfarçável consenso sobre as inconsistências da atual política cambial, nossa dependência dos capitais externos e as dificuldades para desmontar a armadilha da sobrevalorização cambial e dos juros elevados. O atual arcabouço macroeconômico, a despeito da estabilidade monetária, não pode mais voltar-se apenas para o controle de metas de inflação. / Up until 1964, Brazil faced severe difficulties in the economic sphere, due not only to the absence of an exporting and cultural tradition but also to the limitations in the operational structure of its currency exchange market. When Law 4595 of 12.31.64 comes into force, Sumoc ceases to exist, Banco Central (Brazilian Central Bank) is created, the conditions necessary for Banco do Brasil to boost its activities are established and the operation of the stock becomes regulated, an event hailed as a sign of the new times. From then on, the country, in keeping with modern times, has organized the domestic financial system and inserted itself heavily in the international arena. The establishment of bank branches abroad has fostered the development of fresh knowledge and the acquisition of sophisticated operational techniques, bringing us to par, in this particular, with the most developed nations in the world. Such aspects are highlighted in this paper, initially, through an overview of the Brazilian exchange market, its organizational structure and operation. Then, as we retrospectively describe the Brazilian exchange policy from World War II up to the present, we emphasize the countless attempts at correctly adjusting the administration of monetary and exchange policies, which have always been aimed at subduing the inflationary process and reaching commercial surplus in order to alleviate the country's Balance of Payments. One subject, however, is present throughout our analysis and constitutes the central theme to this Dissertation: exchange rates as a product of misguided exchange policies, their direct correlation to interest rates and their adverse effects on public accounts. On that point, we carry out a study of the several economic plans implemented in the country, highlighting the only one to actually reach success regarding its initial goal: Plano Real (Real Plan). Nonetheless, experience has shown that there is currently a hardly concealable consensus on the inconsistencies in the present exchange policy, our dependence on foreign capital and the difficulties to free the country from the trap of currency exchange over appreciation and high interest rates. The current macroeconomic frame, despite the monetary stability, can no longer be dedicated solely to the control of inflation targets.

Instantaneous rate models, although theoretically satisfying, are less so in practice. Instantaneous rates are not observable and calibra- tion to market data is complicated. Hence, the need for a market model where one models LIBOR rates seems imperative. In this modeling process, we aim at regaining the Black-76 formula[7] for pricing caps and °oors since these are the ones used in the market. To regain the Black-76 formula we have to model the LIBOR rates as log-normal processes. The whole construction method means calibration by using market data for caps, °oors and swaptions is straightforward. Brace, Gatarek and Musiela[8] and, Miltersen, Sandmann and Sondermann[25] showed that it is possible to con- struct an arbitrage-free interest rate model in which the LIBOR rates follow a log-normal process leading to Black-type pricing for- mulae for caps and °oors. The key to their approach is to start directly with modeling observed market rates, LIBOR rates in this case, instead of instantaneous spot rates or forward rates. There- after, the market models, which are consistent and arbitrage-free[6], [22], [8], can be used to price more exotic instruments. This model is known as the LIBOR Market Model. In a similar fashion, Jamshidian[22] (1998) showed how to con- struct an arbitrage-free interest rate model that yields Black-type pricing formulae for a certain set of swaptions. In this particular case, one starts with modeling forward swap rates as log-normal processes. This model is known as the Swap Market Model. Some of the advantages of market models as compared to other traditional models are that market models imply pricing formulae for caplets, °oorlets or swaptions that correspond to market practice. Consequently, calibration of such models is relatively simple[8]. The plan of this work is as follows. Firstly, we present an em- pirical analysis of the standard risk-neutral valuation approach, the forward risk-adjusted valuation approach, and elaborate the pro- cess of computing the forward risk-adjusted measure. Secondly, we present the formulation of the LIBOR and Swap market models based on a ¯nite number of bond prices[6], [8]. The technique used will enable us to formulate and name a new model for the South African market, the SAFEX-JIBAR model. In [5], a new approach for the estimation of the volatility of the instantaneous short interest rate was proposed. A relationship between observed LIBOR rates and certain unobserved instantaneous forward rates was established. Since data are observed discretely in time, the stochastic dynamics for these rates were determined un- der the corresponding risk-neutral measure and a ¯ltering estimation algorithm for the time-discretised interest rate dynamics was pro- posed. Thirdly, the SAFEX-JIBAR market model is formulated based on the assumption that the forward JIBAR rates follow a log-normal process. Formulae of the Black-type are deduced and applied to the pricing of a Rand Merchant Bank cap/°oor. In addition, the corre- sponding formulae for the Greeks are deduced. The JIBAR is then compared to other well known models by numerical results. Lastly, we perform some computational analysis in the following manner. We generate bond and caplet prices using Hull's [19] stan- dard market model and calibrate the LIBOR model to the cap curve, i.e determine the implied volatilities ¾i's which can then be used to assess the volatility most appropriate for pricing the instrument under consideration. Having done that, we calibrate the Ho-Lee model to the bond curve obtained by our standard market model. We numerically compute caplet prices using the Black-76 formula for caplets and compare these prices to the ones obtained using the standard market model. Finally we compute and compare swaption prices obtained by our standard market model and by the LIBOR model. / Economics / D.Phil. (Operations Research)

The first essay explores the dynamic behaviors of mortgage-backed stock returns and their volatility spillovers within the framework of time-varying symmetric, asymmetric and multivariate GARCH-family models. The focus of the chapter is on the dynamics of volatility of the U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs) and volatility spillovers within the REITs subdivisions as well as between the REITs and the Fannie Mae (FNM) and theFreddie Mac (FRE) mortgage-backed stocks. We analyze risk-return linkages using the GARCH-in-mean (GARCH-M) model. The presence of asymmetric effects of "bad" news and "good" news on conditional financial volatilities is evaluated using the Threshold ARCH (TARCH) model and the exponential GARCH (EGARCH) model. Volatility spillovers and comovements within REITs subdivisions; REITs with FNM and FRE and other selected financial assets are examined using the multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) model. The second essay investigates factors behind the existence of time-varying conditional volatilities of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). This is done by analyzing the impacts of economic volatilities on mortgage-backed financial markets' performance. The relationship between conditional volatilities of the MBS and conditional volatilities of the key economic fundamentals in the housing sector and the macroeconomy are explored. The sensitivity of mortgage-backed stocks to the underlying time-series changes in economic fundamentals, and the extent to which economic volatilities explain the variation in mortgage-backed stocks' volatilities are investigated. Particularly, we examined whether changes in the REITs, FNM and FRE volatilities are linked to and driven by time-varying volatilities of the housing sector economic activity and set of key macroeconomic variables. Thus, the chapter analyzes the impacts of conditional economic volatilities on the conditional volatilities of the REITs, FRE and FNM stocks. The GARCH (p, q) process is used to find conditional volatility dynamics for the economic variables in the study. Then we employ multivariate GARCH (p, q) model to investigate the spillovers and comovements among the conditional economic fundamentals' volatilities and the conditional volatilities of the MBS. The third essay explores the impacts of foreign sector of the economy on the mortgage-backed financial markets and the housing sector. There is large surge of foreign capital flows to the U.S, particularly since late 1990s. The net foreign holdings of U.S. financial assets have become very significant in the U.S. Treasury notes and bonds. Foreign investors also hold a growing share of securities of the U.S. agencies and government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Similarly, foreign direct investment in the U.S. real estate as well as real estate equities in the form of REITs has grown sharply. To this end, a multivariate vector autoregression (VAR) model is the main tool of analysis. Based on the VAR model, generalized impulse response functions and generalized variance decompositions are employed to evaluate the responses of mortgage interest rates and Treasury yields to the changes in net foreign ownership of U.S. Treasuries and agency bonds.

This dissertation consists of three research studies on capital flows to South Asian countries, estimation of interest rate pass through in Pakistan and the relative city price convergence in Pakistan. The study has used panel data techniques for empirical estimations. The first study attempts to estimate capital mobility in South Asia using saving investment relationship technique and real interest rate differentials methods as suggested by Frankel (1992). The study finds that real interest rate differentials of South Asian countries are stationary and mean reverting with North American, European and Asian countries. Although the RIDS are stationary showing strong evidence of capital mobility, the savings investment correlation is significant. The correlation of savings and investment decreased after 1990s, the post liberalization period implying increased capital mobility afterwards. The RIDs technique provided stronger evidence of than savings and investment correlation technique. The second study is on the estimation of interest rate pass through in Pakistan using two types of data sets i.e. aggregate bank type and retail bank data. The study finds that both lending, deposit and Treasury Bill (TB) rates are non stationary using aggregate data. The lending and TB rate are found to be cointegrated but deposit rate is not found to be cointegrated. The IRPT of four types of banks is found to be less than 1 but three banks showed the IRPT to be higher than 0.5. The highest IRPT is 0.72 in the case of nationalized banks followed by o.70 by privatized banks. The foreign banks IRPT are 0.60. The lowest IRPT is estimated at 0.3. The error correction model estimates overall IRPT to be 0.6 and the convergence parameter is 0.05. It is low and implies that convergence takes time. The study does not find change in 2005 after January 2005 but the speed of adjustment increased when the lending rate is below equilibrium. The retail data provides evidence that lending and deposit rates both are non stationary and cointegrated with TB rate. I found evidence of complete lending rate pass through with Spatial GLS but Phillips Loretain (1991) model shows incomplete pass through. The deposit rate is found to be incomplete and sticky with both the techniques. The third essay provides evidence on relative city price convergence in 35 Pakistani cities with 2 numeraire cities of Lahore and Karachi. The study estimates the autocorrelation coefficient with 2 techniques i.e. OLS and Spatial GLS. Furthermore city wise half life of price shock is also estimated. The empirical evidence supports the hypothesis of convergence in Pakistani cities with both the numeraire cities. The overall half life is estimated to be less than 6 months but there is found heterogeneity in the city wise half life estimates. The half life estimates from Spatial GLS are found to be lower than OLS. The convergence has been found even in the case of distant bordering cities. The overall results support that domestic Purchasing Power Parity holds in Pakistan.

[pt] Este trabalho constrói índices de semântica, utilizando o Google e o Factiva Dow Jones, empregando a metodologia de Lucca e Trebbi (2011), na tentativa de quantificar o conteúdo do comunicado do Copom que o Banco Central do Brasil emite logo após a divulgação da decisão da taxa de juros e o designando uma orientação semântica restritiva ou expansionista. Utilizando dados diários e intradiários de contratos de swap e contratos futuros de DI, respectivamente, vemos que o comunicado afeta a curva de juros somente no período pré-Tombini. Ademais, vemos que a surpresa de política monetária tem um efeito de um para um, algumas vezes maior, nas taxas de juros para o período Tombini até mesmo para taxas longas, o que não ocorre no período pré-Tombini, com a surpresa afetando apenas as taxas entre o curto e médio prazo. Além disso, percebemos que há uma dinâmica intradiária no efeito do conteúdo do comunicado na curva de juros no período Tombini, o que evidencia uma demora na sua assimilação por parte dos agentes econômicos, diferentemente do que é observado no período anterior. Vemos que a surpresa de política monetária afeta a estrutura a termo da taxa de juros durante todo o tempo de funcionamento do mercado para os dois períodos analisados. / [en] This work builds semantic scores using the Google and the Factiva Dow Jones database, based on Lucca and Trebbi s (2011) methodology, in order to quantify the content of the COPOM s statements released by the Central Bank of Brazil shortly after the interest rate s decision and attributing to it a semantic orientation, hawkish or dovish . Using daily and intraday data of swap contracts and DI1 futures contracts, respectively, we find that the content of the BCB s statement affects the yield curve only in the period prior to Tombini s tenure. In addition, we find that the yields respond one-to-one to the interest rate surprise, sometimes more, in the pre-Tombini period even for long term maturities, which we do not see in the period prior to Tombini, where the interest rate surprises affect only the short-to-medium rates. Furthermore, we see an intraday dynamic in the yield responses to the content of the statement in the Tombini period, which give evidence to a delay in its interpretation, differently from what we observe in the previous period. We also find that the interest rate surprises induce changes in the yield curve during the whole time that the market is open for both periods analyzed.

Given the importance of monetary policy in the operation of a successful modern economy and the use of official interest rates as tools in its implementation, this study investigates the implications of changing bank concentration on the operation of the Interest Rate Pass Through (IRPT) of official rates to bank lending and deposit rates. This is an issue made more poignant by growing mergers, acquisitions and bank consolidation exercises around the world that have brought interest to their implications for economic performance. However, with contention high in the industrial organisation theory on the likely relationship between bank concentration and the IRPT, and the outcomes of empirical investigations producing conflicting evidence, the desire to investigate the issue in the African context necessitated a thorough empirical investigation of four African countries (South Africa, Botswana, Nigeria and Zambia). This study not only extended the investigation of the issue to the African context, but it merged different IRPT measurement techniques that had not been jointly applied to this particular issue, namely; Symmetric and Asymmetric Error Correction Models, Mean Adjustment Lags, Ordinary Least Squares estimations and Autoregressive Distributed Lag models. These measures of the IRPT were compared with three firm concentration ratios on two different levels of analysis, one, over the entire period and, another, through eight year rolling windows. The results reveal that bank concentration can sometimes be related to the speed and magnitude of the IRPT but that these relationships are not consistent amongst the countries, over the entire sample period or across the two levels of analysis, suggesting reasons why empirical results have arrived at contrasting conclusions. The results revealed more evidence of a relationship between bank concentration and the magnitude of the IRPT than between bank concentration and the speed of the IRPT. Furthermore, where relationships were identified there was evidence supporting both the structure conduct performance hypothesis and the competing efficient market hypothesis as the true representation of the relationship between bank concentration and the IRPT. The key implication of the result for African countries is that increased bank concentration through bank consolidation programmes should not be automatically regarded as detrimental to the effective implementation of monetary policy through the IRPT. Consequently,banking sector regulation need not stifle bank consolidation and growth to preserve monetary policy effectiveness. Rather, since the relationship cannot be neatly represented by a single theory or hypothesis each country must determine its own interaction between bank concentration and its IRPT before policies regarding the banking sector concentration and effective monetary policy, through the use of official interest rates, are determined.

Most central banks use short-term interest rates as their main instrument of monetary policy. It is assumed that a change in policy rate will influence interest rates set by commercial banks, but this is not usually the case. Commercial banks adjust their interest rates in response to changes in policy rate with lags, which make their interest rates sticky. Stickiness in commercial banks interest rates have been seen as an obstacle to the smooth transmission of monetary policy decisions. Despite the importance of the transmission process, little attention has been given to a systematic measurement of the degree of response of commercial banks‟ interest rates to changes in monetary policy stance in the Anglophone West African countries, specifically within the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) economies. Against this backdrop, this study explores the interest rate adjustment dynamics using monthly interest rate series on discount rate, treasury bill rate, commercial banks‟ deposit and lending rates from 1989 to 2009 (for Gambia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone) and from 2000 to 2009 (for Ghana). Specifically, the study set out to examine how lending and deposit rates respond to changes in the official rates and to see whether there is a convergence among the rates over time. Also, to examine the relative adjustment of commercial bank lending rates to changes in the official rate when there is disequilibrium. The analyses were twofold: a full sample period and a rolling window analysis. Following Cottarelli and Kourelis (1994), the study employed cointegration technique and an asymmetric error correction model to obtain the short-run and long-run parameters from which the error correction coefficients, mean adjustment lags and asymmetric mean adjustment lags were estimated. The results for the entire sample period revealed that the long-run pass-through in Nigeria was 81% and 67% for lending rates and deposit rates respectively. In Ghana, it was 66% and 69% for lending and deposit rates respectively. While in Sierra Leone, long-run pass-through was 62% and 72% for lending and deposit rates respectively. In Gambia, it was 50% and 40% for lending and deposit rates respectively. On the other hand, the short-run pass-through was found to be lower compared to the long-run pass-through: in Nigeria it was 66% and 47%; in Gambia, 26% and 29%; in Sierra Leone, 30% and 13%; and in Ghana, -6% and 35% for lending and deposit rates respectively in each country. The pass-through estimates for the rolling windows were mixed for short-run and long-run pass-through. The mean adjustment lags suggest that the speed of adjustment of Lending rates for full sample period were two, two, seven and twelve months in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Gambia respectively. While for deposit rates they were five, six, seven and eighteen for Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia and Sierra Leone respectively. The average speeds of adjustment for the rolling windows were four and five months for lending and deposit rates respectively. Weak evidence of convergence was found in lending and deposit rates in the short-run and long-run pass-through among the countries. However, the results suggest that the magnitude and speed of the pass-through amongst the countries on average were high compared to emerging Asian countries. Significant asymmetric adjustments were found in the lending rates for Gambia and Sierra Leone, while in Gambia and Nigeria there were asymmetries in deposit rates. Based on the evidence provided, interest rate pass-through is high in Nigeria and Ghana compared to Gambia and Sierra Leone and this calls for the harmonization of financial policies on the part of the financial authorities in the WAMZ. Viewed solely from an interest rate pass-through, the lack of convergence among the countries suggests that WAMZ is far from ready for a monetary union. The relatively low pass-through in some of the countries suggests rigidity in the banking system which may be due to underdevelopment of the system. Thus efforts geared toward strengthening the banking system and the financial system as whole would further enhance the prospect of a monetary union among them.