Suchergebnisse

This paper examines the treatment of sovereign debt exposure within the Basel framework and measures the impact of bank regulation on the demand of Monetary Financial Institutions (MFI) for marketable sovereign debt. Our results suggest that bank regulation has a significant positive impact on MFI demand for domestic government securities. The results are representative for the MFI in the euro zone. They remain highly robust and significant after controlling for other influential factors and potential endogeneity.

Many studies have documented the pervasive underfunding of public sector pension plans in the United States in recent years. The deterioration of the funded status of public pension plans coincided with severe fiscal crises that state and local governments experienced in the 2000s. This development has led to a suspicion that state and local governments have decreased employer pension contributions as a backdoor means of running fiscal deficits. In this paper, the authors investigate the extent to which this phenomenon has occurred. They estimate panel data regressions using the Boston College Center for Retirement Research's Public Plans Database, which provides data for 2001 through 2010. The authors find that contrary to popular belief, plan sponsors do not reduce their contributions in response to negative fiscal or economic shocks. In contrast, plan sponsors' contributions to their pension plans increase in response to growth in their unfunded liabilities. The authors document that the public pension underfunding crisis during the 2000s developed largely as a consequence of portfolio returns that fell short of expectations. Public pension plans' assets portfolios have a relatively high share of equities and other risky assets, leaving the plans' funded status vulnerable to asset price fluctuations. Although plan sponsors increased their contributions in response to the growth of unfunded liabilities, they did not do so by enough to fully counteract the effect of the subpar portfolio returns. This finding holds across the spectrum of plans ranked in terms of funded status in 2010.

Studies of foreclosure externalities have overwhelmingly focused on the impact of forced sales on the value of nearby properties, typically finding modest evidence of foreclosure spillovers. However, many quality-of-life issues posed by foreclosures may not be reflected in nearby sale prices. This paper uses new data from Boston on constituent complaints and requests for public services made to City government departments, matched with loan-level data, to examine the timing of foreclosure externalities. I find evidence that property conditions suffer most while homes are bank owned, although reduced maintenance is also common earlier in the foreclosure process. Since short sales prevent bank ownership, they should result in fewer neighborhood disamenities than foreclosures.

This work was supported by the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES), a National Research Network (NFN) sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [S10902-G11]. We thank Ben Jann for his kind support and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

Funding This work is supported by the Austrian National Election Study, a National Research Network sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (S10902-G11). Acknowledgments The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and Graeme Blair and Kosuke Imai for their helpful support. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

Acknowledgements. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their close reading and all suggestions to improve our work. All authors have equally contributed to this publication; authorship is in alphabetical order. Funding: This work is supported by the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES), a National Research Network (NFN) sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [S10902-G11]. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF

This article presents models of electoral competition in municipalities in which candidates for mayor announce platforms consisting of the amount of health services to be provided and the corresponding tax schedules. Health services can be provided in an autarkic way or by means of a consortium of two municipalities. The paper studies the effects of income and preference heterogeneity among municipalities. Only when municipalities are totally homogeneous may one assert that the consortium brings about an increase in the provision of health services. Moreover, homogeneous consortia tend to be formed whereas heterogeneous municipalities tend to remain separated. ; This article presents models of electoral competition in municipalities in which candidates for mayor announce platforms consisting of the amount of health services to be provided and the corresponding tax schedules. Health services can be provided in an autarkic way or by means of a consortium of two municipalities. The paper studies the effects of income and preference heterogeneity among municipalities. Only when municipalities are totally homogeneous may one assert that the consortium brings about an increase in the provision of health services. Moreover, homogeneous consortia tend to be formed whereas heterogeneous municipalities tend to remain separated.