Central banks

Developing distributional national accounts: first attempt to estimate a joint distribution for income and wealth for the euro area

In recent years, projects have sought to embed distributional aspects within national accounts, with household distributional information set to feature in the next System of National Accounts. There is growing emphasis on capturing all material dimensions of welfare—income, consumption, and wealth—at both macro and micro levels within a unified framework.

Reputation for Confidence

We model how a central bank communicates its noisy forecasts (forward guidance) while taking into account its own uncertainty (confidence) and the public’s perception of the bank’s uncertainty (reputation for confidence). This creates a mismatch between the public and central bank’s interpretation of the bank announcement which induces the bank to communicate with partial transparency and deliberate imprecision. Moreover, with higher confidence (lower reputation) announcements are more precise.

Developing distributional national accounts: first attempt to estimate a joint distribution for income and wealth for the euro area

In recent years, projects have sought to embed distributional aspects within national accounts, with household distributional information set to feature in the next System of National Accounts. There is growing emphasis on capturing all material dimensions of welfare—income, consumption, and wealth—at both macro and micro levels within a unified framework.

Banking on assumptions? How banks model deposit maturities

How do banks manage the behavioural maturity of non-maturing deposits (NMDs)? Using a rich and confidential dataset, we investigate how banks model deposit maturities based on internal assumptions. Although NMDs are contractually floating-rate liabilities with zero maturity, banks reallocate them across different maturity buckets using models that reflect past customer behaviour. Notably, only 20% of NMDs are treated as having zero maturity, while about 10% are assigned maturities beyond seven years. We assess whether these modelling assumptions align with banks’ deposit structures.

Banking on assumptions? How banks model deposit maturities

How do banks manage the behavioural maturity of non-maturing deposits (NMDs)? Using a rich and confidential dataset, we investigate how banks model deposit maturities based on internal assumptions. Although NMDs are contractually floating-rate liabilities with zero maturity, banks reallocate them across different maturity buckets using models that reflect past customer behaviour. Notably, only 20% of NMDs are treated as having zero maturity, while about 10% are assigned maturities beyond seven years. We assess whether these modelling assumptions align with banks’ deposit structures.

FEDS Paper: Declining Search Frictions, Unemployment, and Growth Revisited

Juan Carlos Córdoba, Anni T. Isojärvi, and Haoran LiThis paper revisits the conditions under which search models generate balanced growth paths (BGPs)—equilibria where unemployment, vacancies, and job flows remain steady as search frictions decline. Martellini and Menzio (2020) claim that such paths exist only when matches are “inspection goods” and match quality follows a Pareto distribution. We show that these conditions are sufficient but not necessary.

FEDS Paper: Do the Rich Really Save More? Answering an Old Question Using the SCF with Direct Measures of Lifetime Earnings and an Expanded Wealth Concept

Elizabeth Llanes, Jeffrey Thompson, and Alice Henriques VolzThe question of whether affluent households save at a higher rate than other parts of the distribution has been asked by economists on numerous occasions since the 1950s. It is standard in this research to define affluent, or “rich,” households as those with high lifetime earnings or income to better ground the empirical question in relevant theory.

FEDS Paper: Understanding Preferences for Payment Cards using Household Scanner Data

Marc Rysman, Shuang Wang, and Krzysztof WozniakWe use consumer panel scanner data to examine households' payment choices, a new application of such data. In particular, we study the long-term shift towards payment cards, as well as the role of transaction size in determining choices. We find that idiosyncratic household preferences are a key driver of payment choice.

Human rights, the climate emergency, and the financial system

On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a landmark ruling in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland. The ruling was handed down together with two further rulings in Duarte Agostinho and others v. Portugal and others, and in Carême v. France. The ruling marked the first time the ECtHR held that insufficient climate action by a state constitutes a violation of human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

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