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Daily Archives: April 29, 2014

A Primer on the GCF Repo® Service

A Primer on the GCF Repo® Service, April 2014. Number 671. Paul Agueci, Leyla Alkan, Adam Copeland, Isaac Davis, Antoine Martin, Kate Pingitore, Caroline Prugar, and Tyisha Rivas.
“This primer provides a detailed description of the GCF Repo® Service, a financial service provided by the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation. The primer is composed of an introductory note and two separate papers. The first paper focuses on the clearance and settlement of GCF Repo. These financial plumbing details are especially important because the settlement of GCF Repo has been and will continue to be impacted by the current reforms to the tri-party repo settlement platform. In particular, the authors lay out the various ways that intraday credit was used pre-reform to facilitate the settlement of GCF Repo and why this use of credit is problematic. They also describe the reforms that are planned or in effect already, and consider how these reforms affect the use of intraday credit. The second paper examines how dealers use the GCF Repo Service. The authors first describe the various strategies that dealers employ when trading GCF Repo and then use empirical analysis to quantify the predominance of these strategies. Although they focus on different aspects of the GCF Repo Service, the two papers are complementary. This is because the strategies that dealers follow in trading GCF Repos are influenced by the clearance and settlement procedures in place. Furthermore, when gauging the risks of potential changes to the clearance and settlement of GCF Repo, it is important to take into account how GCF Repos are traded. Consequently, the papers are presented jointly so as to encourage readers to become familiar with both aspects of the GCF Repo Service.”

Monetary Policy Coordination and the Role of Central Banks

IMF – Monetary Policy Coordination and the Role of Central Banks, by Rakesh Mohan and Muneesh Kapur, April 2014. “The unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) pursued by the advanced economies (AEs) have posed macroeconomic challenges for the emerging market economies (EMEs) through volatile capital flows and exchange rates. AE central banks need to acknowledge and appreciate the… Continue Reading

Two new NOAA reports show strong economic gains from fishing, continued improvement in fish stocks

“U.S. commercial and recreational saltwater fishing generated more than $199 billion in sales in 2012, a gain of seven percent over the previous year, with the economic impact of fishing jobs increasing three percent from 2011 to 2012, according to a new NOAA Fisheries economics report. Further, two more fish stocks were rebuilt to target levels in… Continue Reading

Cybersecurity Procurement Language for Energy Delivery Systems

Energy Sector Control Systems Working Group (ESCSWG) April 2014: “Energy delivery systems are critical to the effective and reliable operation of North America’s energy infrastructure. Our twenty-first-century way of life is made possible by the vast network of processes enabled by these systems, as well as the interconnected electronic components, communication devices, and people who monitor and control those… Continue Reading

Survey of Public Pensions: State- and Locally-Administered Defined Benefit Data

Census: “The Survey of Public Pensions: State- and Locally-Administered Defined Benefit Data provides revenues, expenditures, financial assets, and membership information for the defined benefit public pension systems. Data are shown for individual pension systems as well as at the national, state, and local level. There were 227 state-administered and 3,771 locally-administered defined benefit public pension… Continue Reading

Responding to Oil Spills in the U.S. Arctic Marine Environment

“U.S. Arctic waters north of the Bering Strait and west of the Canadian border encompass a vast area that is usually ice covered for much of the year, but is increasingly experiencing longer periods and larger areas of open water due to climate change. Sparsely inhabited with a wide variety of ecosystems found nowhere else,… Continue Reading

The Low-Wage Recovery: Industry Employment and Wages Four Years into the Recovery

“This report updates NELP’s previous industry-based analyses of job loss and job growth trends during and after the Great Recession. The report shows that low-wage job creation was not simply a characteristic of the early recovery, but rather a pattern that has persisted for more than four years now. We find that during the labor market downturn (measured… Continue Reading

Pew – Public strongly backs affirmative action programs on campus

“The use of affirmative action programs in college admissions has roiled campuses and the public for years, leading to state-passed laws banning the practice and to the April 22nd Supreme Court ruling upholding a Michigan voter initiative banning the use of racial preferences. But while the debate and the battles continue, a new Pew Research Center poll finds that… Continue Reading

New GAO Reports – Regulators’ Foreclosure Review, DHS Acquisitions, Weapons Systems Management

FORECLOSURE REVIEW: Regulators Could Strengthen Oversight and Improve Transparency of the Process, GAO-14-376: Published: Apr 29, 2014. Publicly Released: Apr 29, 2014: “Rather than defining specific objectives for the $6 billion in foreclosure prevention actions regulators negotiated with servicers, regulators identified broad principles, including that actions be meaningful and that borrowers be kept in their homes. To inform… Continue Reading

The Federal Reserve’s Discount Window and TAF Programs

Berger, Allen N. and Black, Lamont K and Bouwman, Christa H. S. and Dlugosz, Jennifer, The Federal Reserve’s Discount Window and TAF Programs: ‘Pushing on a String?’ (April 25, 2014). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2429710 “The Federal Reserve injected unprecedented liquidity into banks during the crisis using the discount window and Term Auction Facility. We examine these… Continue Reading