New Ideas on Economic Policy from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Economic policy is in the forefront of a lot of people’s minds today. Forefront, the Cleveland Fed’s showcase of policy ideas, is devoted to critical policy issues facing our region and the nation at-large.
Fall Issue Preview
Overextended, Underinvested: The Debt Overhang Problem
High debt burdens can restrain business spending and investment through several channels. This article explains how economists have taken a potentially important step forward in understanding the “debt overhang” channel. The work of Filippo Occhino and Andrea Pescatori suggests an even greater role for countercyclical fiscal policy and perhaps monetary policy to offset the investment aversion that develops among debt-saddled firms. Read more
Also on this topic
- The Drawing Board: Really bad drawings, real simple explanations
- Economic Commentary: “Is Debt Overhang Causing Firms to Underinvest?”
- Working Paper: “Debt Overhang and Credit Risk in a Business Cycle Model”
- See them all
Spring 2010
Volume 1 Number 2
Download the full print version
- President’s Message
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- Regulatory Reform: Lessons from the Front Line Read more (PDF)
- A Proposal: Using the CRA to Fight Vacancy and Abandonment
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- In 2009, banks became the reluctant holders of more than 1,500 foreclosed properties in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Most of these houses are in Cleveland, worth little to nothing, and in danger of remaining vacant for the foreseeable future- destined to define neighborhood decay. Read more (PDF)
- Video Clips: Using the CRA to Fight Vacancy and Abandonment
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- Cleveland Fed researchers discuss the Bank’s proposal for recasting the CRA to address the vacancy and abandonment problem. Read more
- The Community Reinvestment Act and the Economics of Lending in Lower-Income Neighborhoods
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- The Community Reinvestment Act helped end the practice of redlining. But 33 years after its introduction, it may be time to consider whether the CRA needs a twenty-first century overhaul. Read more (PDF)
- The Fed’s Exit Strategy Explained
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- Beginning in 2008, the Federal Reserve purchased $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities, dramatically increasing the asset side of the central bank’s balance sheet. Read more (PDF)
- Audio Presentation: The Fed’s Exit Strategy Explained
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- Mark Sniderman, executive vice president and chief policy officer for the Cleveland Fed, discusses some of the ways the central bank can reduce the size of its balance sheet without in incurring inflation. Read more
- Spotting a Financial Crisis Before It Happens
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- What could we have done differently to spot—and then stop—the impending financial crisis of 2008? Read more (PDF)
- Small Business: Credit Where Credit is Due?
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- The story of Torbeck Industries, a Harrison, Ohio, manufacturer of safety equipment, has grown all too familiar. Read more (PDF)
- Interview with Anil K. Kashyap
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- Some say that the financial crisis has launched a thousand Ph.D. dissertations and perhaps just as many books. Anil Kashyap was on the case from the very beginning. Read more (PDF)
- Video Clips: Interview with Anil K. Kashyap
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- Anil K. Kashyap is among the nation’s leading experts on the financial crisis and efforts to reform financial regulations. He is the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago?s Booth School of Business. Mark Sniderman, Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, interview Kashyap on February 15, 2010, at the Booth School. Read more
- Land Bank Notches First-Year Win
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- In its first year, the Land Bank of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, took strides toward becoming the model approach to the vacancy and abandonment problem that state lawmakers hoped it would be. Read more (PDF)
- View: Neighborhood Stabilization: Early Reports on Policymaking in Action
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- Many neighborhoods bear visible scars of the housing crisis in the form of vacant and abandoned homes. These properties attract crime, drag down the values of neighboring properties, and erode a neighborhood’s sense of community. Read more (PDF)
