The difference between yields on nominal and inflation-linked government bonds or inflation swap rates are important indicators of the outlook for inflation and are monitored regularly by central banks, including the United Kingdom's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). However, in the United Kingdom, inflation-linked instruments reference RPI inflation, whereas the MPC's target is CPI inflation of 2%. In this paper we extract market expectations for UK CPI inflation with the help of UK RPI-linked gilt prices, which is a novelty in the literature. To better extract useful information about expectations for CPI inflation, we develop a no-arbitrage term structure model and decompose the forward inflation curve into: measures of CPI inflation expectations; the expected wedge between RPI and CPI inflation; estimates of inflation risk premia and estimates of liquidity risk premia. We show that long-horizon expectations of CPI inflation fell in the 1990 s, after the introduction of inflation targeting and the creation of the MPC, and have since remained fairly stable at around 2%.

Real estate transactions are often established through financing. We study the effect of financing on property prices. We show that properties can transact at prices well above their collateral values. Therefore, the commonly used loan-to-value (LTV) ratio suffers a bias that can significantly understate credit risk. This bias is exacerbated when mortgages are originated with longer terms, at higher LTV ratios, or when sellers possess stronger bargaining power. Furthermore, this bias is larger under aggressive lending products, e.g. interest-only loans and mortgages allowing negative amortization. Our simulation results suggest that many mortgages originated at the peak of the housing bubble are, in fact, “under water” at origination. In particular, the loan amount of a 30-year mortgage at a 95% LTV can be 15% greater than the collateral value of the property, suggesting the mortgage is already deep “under water” at origination. These findings call into questions underwriting and risk control practices in mortgages and other collateralized debts.

Using a panel of Chinese firms over the period 2003–2013, we show that, from the supply-side perspective, as a result of the implementation of the economic stimulus package in China, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) received more bank loans and invested more than non-SOEs. We further find that after the implementation of the economic stimulus package, bank lending became less responsive to firm profitability, and firm investments became less responsive to investment opportunities for SOEs, non-SOEs from favoured industries and regions, and non-SOEs with political connections. Overall, our findings support the view that the stimulus package and the associated increase in bank loan supply in China resulted in more resources being allocated to SOEs.

We examine the impact of competition on bank earnings persistence by exploiting a natural experiment following interstate banking deregulation that increased bank competition. We find that bank earnings adjustment speed increases after their states implement the deregulation. This relationship is weakened, however, with the increase of bank's abilities to sustain earnings, as reflected in size, diversification, managerial efficiency and safety. We further find that the impact of compeititon on bank earnings adjustment speed is direct but not indirectly through the channel of earnings management.