Financial institutions

When firms do not take the money and run: evidence from corporate loan moratoria

09/16/2026 European Central Bank Central banks

Suspending loan repayments is a widely used policy tool to provide liquidity during crises. We study the take-up and real effects of the 2020 Austrian corporate debt moratoria, which required banks to temporarily postpone loan repayments for eligible firms. Exploiting a discontinuity in eligibility at a two-million-euro asset threshold, we document a take-up rate of 44%, well below full participation, reflecting both the pecuniary cost of the policy and firms’ fear of stigmatization.

Endogenous monetary policy effectiveness

09/15/2026 European Central Bank Central banks

How does the effectiveness of monetary policy vary over the policy cycle? Do tightenings and loosenings have symmetric effects on the macroeconomy? This paper addresses these questions using a nonlinear empirical framework that allows financial exposure to evolve endogenously in response to macroeconomic conditions and monetary policy changes. We provide new evidence on how monetary policy effectiveness varies over the policy cycle and across economic states.

DeFi-ying the Fed? Monetary policy transmission to stablecoin deposit rates

09/14/2026 European Central Bank Central banks

Does the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy influence the rates on USD-pegged stablecoins? While major stablecoin issuers do not pay interest, investors can earn returns by depositing stablecoins in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols. We document unusually large and persistent spreads between traditional short-term interest rates and DeFi deposit rates, as well as a weak and unstable transmission of policy rate changes.

Fiscal policy and sectoral spillovers in open-economy HANK

09/14/2026 European Central Bank Central banks

Government spending falls disproportionately on non-tradable services. We show empirically that government spending shocks stimulate private consumption along with sizable spillovers to the goods sector and a relative decline in goods prices. We rationalize these findings with a two-sector open-economy HANK model. Uninsurable income risk and precautionary savings lead to a persistent income-driven expansion in private consumption. In the tradable sector, import intensity and limited labor reallocation dampen wage pass-through to prices, matching observed co-movements.

FEDS Paper: The Flight to Affordability: Effects of Pandemic Rent Increases on Renters By Geography

09/03/2026 Federal Reserve Central banks

Erin Troland, Isabella Agnes, Jessica Liu, Fatimah Shalaan, Michelle Tran, and Douglas WebberIn the pandemic era, people moved from high-density, expensive areas to more affordable areas, putting upward pressure on local housing prices. We examine the geographic distribution of rent growth during this time and its effects on renters.

FEDS Paper: Linear and Nonlinear Econometric Models versus Machine-Learning Models: Evidence from Realized-Volatility Forecasting(Revised)

09/02/2026 Federal Reserve Central banks

Rehim KilicThis paper examines which representations of persistence and nonlinearity are most useful for forecasting realized volatility and whether machine learning adds value beyond econometric models designed for long memory and regime dependence. We compare HAR, ARFIMA, threshold HAR, smooth-transition HAR, and Markov-switching HAR with XGBoost and several neural-network models for the S&P 500 and 40 U.S. equities.

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