infonet-economy

This paper studies the transmission of changes in short-term interest rates to longer-term government bond yields when interest rates are at very low levels or negative. We focus on Switzerland, where short-term interest rates have been at zero since late 2008 and negative since the beginning of 2015. The expectations hypothesis of the term structure implies that as nominal interest...

We study the transmission of changes in the believed location of the lower bound to longterm interest rates since the introduction of negative interest rate policies. The expectations hypothesis of the term structure combined with a lower bound on policy rates suggests that the transmission of policy rate changes to long-term interest rates is reduced when policy rates approach this...

Firms adjust their employment to changes in output. But they tend to adjust employment only partially. Typically, labor is hoarded in downturns and subsequently firms have to hire less in upturns. Investment in labor hoarding may therefore be influenced by factors that impede investments, such as financial constraints. Using firm-level data, we show that financial constraints increase the...

Central banks have increased their engagement in the information and education of the broad public. But what can be said about the nonprofessional’s knowledge of monetary policy and central banking? Based on the Bank of England’s Inflation Attitudes Survey, I construct a score to capture the central banking knowledge of the respondents. I show that the average British person displays...

Networks can establish business connections and facilitate information flows; but how valuable are they in competitive settings, such as in the deal generation of private equity funds? We find that educational ties between management teams of acquiring fund and target company are frequent (around 15%) and increase the odds of winning a deal (by 79%). When competing with other funds,...

We address the heated debate over the staggered board. One theory claims that a staggered board facilitates entrenchment of inefficient management and thus harms corporate value. Consequently, some institutional investors and shareholder rights advocates have argued for the elimination of the staggered board. The opposite theory is that staggered boards are value enhancing since they...

We analyze how the transmission of international inflation spillovers depends on the nature of the underlying shocks that drive inflation abroad. We find evidence for substantial heterogeneity in the magnitude of spillovers to domestic inflation related to the fundamental source of international price fluctuations and the corresponding monetary policy reactions. Indeed, it turns out that...

This paper examines liquidity in the Swiss franc repurchase (repo) market and assesses its determinants using a proprietary dataset ranging from 2006 to 2016. I find that repo market liquidity has a distinct intraday pattern, with low liquidity in early and late trading hours. Moreover, repo market liquidity is negatively affected by stress in the global financial system and the end...

This paper documents significant differences in the financing structure of small firms with managers of diverse cultural backgrounds. To separate the effect of culture from other factors that affect the financing structure of firms, we exploit cultural heterogeneity within a geographical area with shared regulations, institutions, and macroeconomic cycles. Our findings suggest that...