This note uses a nonlinear structural vector autoregression model to empirically investigate the effectiveness of official foreign exchange (FX) interventions in an economy when interest rates are constrained to the zero level, based on Japanese data in the 1990s. The model allows us to estimate the effects of FX interventions operating through different channels. We find that FX interventions ...

How do low real interest rates constrain monetary policy? Is the zero lower bound optimal if the real interest rate is suffi ciently low? What is the role of forward guidance? A model is constructed that can incorporate sticky price frictions, collateral constraints, and conventional monetary distortions. The model has neo-Fisherian properties. Forward guidance in a liquidity trap works through...

This paper explores the role of liquidity risk in the pricing of corporate bonds. We show that corporate bond returns have significant exposures to fluctuations in treasury bond liquidity and equity market liquidity. Further, this liquidity risk is a priced factor for the expected returns on corporate bonds, and the associated liquidity risk premia help to explain the credit spread puzzle. In t...

This research seeks statistical commonalities in market liquidity across a range of corporate equities and bond markets and commodity futures markets, with an aim to better understanding system-level patterns in aggregate or funding liquidity that arise from broad patterns in market liquidity. We present a Bayesian estimation of hidden Markov chain (HMC) models to measure the latent structure o...

This paper proposes a new non-parametric method for estimating model-free, time-varying liquidity betas which builds on realized covariance and volatility theory. Working under a liquidityadjusted CAPM framework we provide evidence that liquidity risk is a factor priced in the Greek stock market, mainly arising from the covariation of individual liquidity with local market liquidity, however, t...

This paper studies the pricing of liquidity risk in the cross section of corporate bonds for the period from January 1994 to March 2009. The average return on bonds with high sensitivities to aggregate liquidity exceeds that for bonds with low sensitivities by about 4% annually. The positive relation between expected corporate bond returns and liquidity beta is robust to the effects of default ...

We study the interplay between corporate liquidity and asset reallocation. Our model shows that financially distressed firms are acquired by liquid firms in their industries even in the absence of operational synergies. We call these transactions ‘‘liquidity mergers,’’ since their purpose is to reallocate liquidity to firms that are otherwise inefficiently terminated. We show that liquidity mer...

Market liquidity has an important role in trading on stock markets, since on illiquid markets the implicit cost of trading can cause notable losses for the investors. Therefore market participants should always measure the liquidity of the markets, which they can carry out in two ways, in a static and in a dynamic form. The most commonly used liquidity measures – bid-ask spread and the turnover...

We investigate the issue of whether there was a stable money demand function for Japan in 1990's using both aggregate and disaggregate time series data. The aggregate data appears to support the contention that there was no stable money demand function. The disaggregate data shows that there was a stable money demand function. Neither was there any indication of the presence of liquidity trap. ...

Motivated by the recent experiences of the euro area and Japan, this paper presents a model that captures the joint occurrence of a liquidity trap and a jobless recovery. Its key elements are downward nominal wage rigidity, a Taylor-type interest-rate feedback rule, the zero bound on nominal rates, and a confidence shock. Absent a change in policy, the model predicts that low inflation and high...