IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ijc/ijcjou/y2021q5a7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Monetary Normalizations and Consumer Credit: Evidence from Fed Liftoff and Online Lending

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph Bertsch

    (Sveriges Riksbank)

  • Isaiah Hull

    (Sveriges Riksbank)

  • Xin Zhang

    (Sveriges Riksbank)

Abstract

On December 16, 2015, the Federal Reserve initiated "liftoff," a critical step in the monetary normalization process. We use a unique panel data set of 640,000 loan-hour observations to measure the cross-sectional impact of liftoff on interest rates, demand, and supply in the peer-to-peer market for uncollateralized consumer credit. We find that the spread decreased by 17 percent, driven by an increase in supply. Our results are consistent with an investor-perceived reduction in default probabilities and suggest that liftoff provided a strong, positive signal about the future solvency of high credit risk borrowers.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Bertsch & Isaiah Hull & Xin Zhang, 2021. "Monetary Normalizations and Consumer Credit: Evidence from Fed Liftoff and Online Lending," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(71), pages 1-47, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ijc:ijcjou:y:2021:q:5:a:7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb21q5a7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb21q5a7.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ben S. Bernanke & Kenneth N. Kuttner, 2005. "What Explains the Stock Market's Reaction to Federal Reserve Policy?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(3), pages 1221-1257, June.
    2. Huang, Yiping & Li, Xiang & Wang, Chu, 2021. "What does peer-to-peer lending evidence say about the Risk-Taking Channel of monetary policy?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. George-Marios Angeletos & Alessandro Pavan, 2004. "Transparency of Information and Coordination in Economies with Investment Complementarities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 91-98, May.
    4. Giacomo Rodano & Nicolas Serrano-Velarde & Emanuele Tarantino, 2018. "Lending Standards over the Credit Cycle," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(8), pages 2943-2982.
    5. Sumit Agarwal & Brent W. Ambrose (ed.), 2007. "Household Credit Usage," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-60891-7.
    6. Nina Boyarchenko & Valentin Haddad & Matthew Plosser, 2016. "The Federal Reserve and market confidence," Staff Reports 773, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    7. Belleflamme, Paul & Omrani, Nessrine & Peitz, Martin, 2015. "The economics of crowdfunding platforms," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 11-28.
    8. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    9. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(2 (Fall)), pages 215-287.
    10. Kuttner, Kenneth N., 2001. "Monetary policy surprises and interest rates: Evidence from the Fed funds futures market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 523-544, June.
    11. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    12. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1992. "The Federal Funds Rate and the Channels of Monetary Transmission," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 901-921, September.
    13. Florian Heider & Farzad Saidi & Glenn Schepens, 2019. "Life below Zero: Bank Lending under Negative Policy Rates," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(10), pages 3728-3761.
    14. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    15. Jonathan H. Wright, 2012. "What does Monetary Policy do to Long‐term Interest Rates at the Zero Lower Bound?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(564), pages 447-466, November.
    16. Jiménez, Gabriel & Ongena, Steven & Peydró, José-Luis & Saurina, Jesús, 2012. "Credit Supply and Monetary Policy: Identifying the Bank Balance-Sheet Channel with Loan Applications," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 102(5), pages 2301-2326.
    17. Becker, Bo, 2007. "Geographical segmentation of US capital markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 151-178, July.
    18. Jeremy C. Stein & Anil K. Kashyap, 2000. "What Do a Million Observations on Banks Say about the Transmission of Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 407-428, June.
    19. Roberto Rigobon & Brian Sack, 2003. "Measuring The Reaction of Monetary Policy to the Stock Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 639-669.
    20. Faust, Jon & Wright, Jonathan H., 2009. "Comparing Greenbook and Reduced Form Forecasts Using a Large Realtime Dataset," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 468-479.
    21. Sumit Agarwal & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Neale Mahoney & Johannes Stroebel, 2018. "Do Banks Pass through Credit Expansions to Consumers Who want to Borrow?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 129-190.
    22. Jeffrey I. McGill & Garrett J. van Ryzin, 1999. "Revenue Management: Research Overview and Prospects," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 233-256, May.
    23. Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher, 2007. "Transparency, Disclosure, and the Federal Reserve," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 3(1), pages 179-225, March.
    24. Mark Gertler & Peter Karadi, 2015. "Monetary Policy Surprises, Credit Costs, and Economic Activity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 44-76, January.
    25. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-b.
    26. Gonzalez, Laura & Loureiro, Yuliya Komarova, 2014. "When can a photo increase credit? The impact of lender and borrower profiles on online peer-to-peer loans," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 2(C), pages 44-58.
    27. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, volume 2, number 2-a.
    28. Giuseppe Bertola & Richard Disney & Charles Grant (ed.), 2006. "The Economics of Consumer Credit," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262026015, December.
    29. Ludvigson, Sydney, 1998. "The Channel of Monetary Transmission to Demand: Evidence from the Market for Automobile Credit," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 365-383, August.
    30. Swanson, Eric T., 2006. "Have Increases in Federal Reserve Transparency Improved Private Sector Interest Rate Forecasts?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(3), pages 791-819, April.
    31. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2006. "Social Value of Public Information: Comment: Morris and Shin (2002) Is Actually Pro-Transparency, Not Con," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 448-452, March.
    32. Hanson, Samuel G. & Stein, Jeremy C., 2015. "Monetary policy and long-term real rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 429-448.
    33. Andrew Sweeting, 2012. "Dynamic Pricing Behavior in Perishable Goods Markets: Evidence from Secondary Markets for Major League Baseball Tickets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(6), pages 1133-1172.
    34. Andersson, Malin & Dillen, Hans & Sellin, Peter, 2006. "Monetary policy signaling and movements in the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1815-1855, November.
    35. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Marcel Fratzscher & Jakob De Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2008. "Central Bank Communication and Monetary Policy: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(4), pages 910-945, December.
    36. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    37. Harvey, Campbell R., 1988. "The real term structure and consumption growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 305-333, December.
    38. Monika Piazzesi, 2002. "The Fed and Interest Rates - A High-Frequency Identification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 90-95, May.
    39. Chen, Ning & Ghosh, Arpita & Lambert, Nicolas S., 2014. "Auctions for social lending: A theoretical analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 367-391.
    40. Tobias Berg & Valentin Burg & Ana Gombović & Manju Puri, 2020. "On the Rise of FinTechs: Credit Scoring Using Digital Footprints," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(7), pages 2845-2897.
    41. repec:pri:cepsud:161blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    42. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2011. "The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(2 (Fall)), pages 215-287.
    43. Andrew Hertzberg & Andres Liberman & Daniel Paravisini, 2018. "Screening on Loan Terms: Evidence from Maturity Choice in Consumer Credit," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(9), pages 3532-3567.
    44. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    45. Huan Tang, 2019. "Peer-to-Peer Lenders Versus Banks: Substitutes or Complements?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(5), pages 1900-1938.
    46. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    47. repec:zbw:bofitp:2019_016 is not listed on IDEAS
    48. Cook, Timothy & Hahn, Thomas, 1989. "The effect of changes in the federal funds rate target on market interest rates in the 1970s," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 331-351, November.
    49. de Roure, Calebe & Pelizzon, Loriana & Tasca, Paolo, 2016. "How does P2P lending fit into the consumer credit market?," Discussion Papers 30/2016, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    50. Marco Di Maggio & Amir Kermani & Benjamin J. Keys & Tomasz Piskorski & Rodney Ramcharan & Amit Seru & Vincent Yao, 2017. "Interest Rate Pass-Through: Mortgage Rates, Household Consumption, and Voluntary Deleveraging," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3550-3588, November.
    51. Juanjuan Zhang & Peng Liu, 2012. "Rational Herding in Microloan Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 892-912, May.
    52. Wedad Elmaghraby & P{i}nar Keskinocak, 2003. "Dynamic Pricing in the Presence of Inventory Considerations: Research Overview, Current Practices, and Future Directions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(10), pages 1287-1309, October.
    53. Jefferson Duarte & Stephan Siegel & Lance Young, 2012. "Trust and Credit: The Role of Appearance in Peer-to-peer Lending," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(8), pages 2455-2484.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huang, Yiping & Li, Xiang & Wang, Chu, 2021. "What does peer-to-peer lending evidence say about the Risk-Taking Channel of monetary policy?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Bertsch, Christoph & Hull, Isaiah & Qi, Yingjie & Zhang, Xin, 2020. "Bank misconduct and online lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bertsch, Christoph & Hull, Isaiah & Zhang, Xin, 2016. "Fed Liftoff and Subprime Loan Interest Rates: Evidence from the Peer-to-Peer Lending Market," Working Paper Series 319, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    2. Darmouni, Olivier & Geisecke, Oliver & Rodnyanky, Alexander, 2019. "The Bond Lending Channel of Monetary Policy," MPRA Paper 95141, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    4. Simon Gilchrist & Vivian Z. Yue & Egon Zakrajšek, 2016. "The Response of Sovereign Bond Yields to U.S. Monetary Policy," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Elías Albagli & Diego Saravia & Michael Woodford (ed.),Monetary Policy through Asset Markets: Lessons from Unconventional Measures and Implications for an Integrated World, edition 1, volume 24, chapter 8, pages 257-283, Central Bank of Chile.
    5. Masahiko Shibamoto, 2016. "Empirical Assessment of the Impact of Monetary Policy Communication on the Financial Market," Discussion Paper Series DP2016-19, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    6. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2018. "High-Frequency Identification of Monetary Non-Neutrality: The Information Effect," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1283-1330.
    7. Michael D Bauer & Aeimit Lakdawala & Philippe Mueller, 2022. "Market-Based Monetary Policy Uncertainty," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(644), pages 1290-1308.
    8. Kiyotaka Nakashima & Masahiko Shibamoto & Koji Takahashi, 2017. "Risk-Taking Channel of Unconventional Monetary Policies in Bank Lending," Discussion Paper Series DP2017-24, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Apr 2019.
    9. Chen, Zhengyang, 2019. "The Long-term Rate and Interest Rate Volatility in Monetary Policy Transmission," EconStor Preprints 204579, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Simon Gilchrist & Vivian Yue & Egon Zakrajšek, 2019. "U.S. Monetary Policy and International Bond Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(S1), pages 127-161, December.
    11. Paul Hubert & Fabien Labondance, 2019. "Central bank tone and the dispersion of views within monetary policy committees," Sciences Po publications 2019 – 08, Sciences Po.
    12. Sun, Rongrong, 2020. "Monetary policy announcements and market interest rates’ response: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    13. Stéphane Lhuissier & Urszula Szczerbowicz, 2022. "Monetary Policy and Corporate Debt Structure," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(3), pages 497-515, June.
    14. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7v8fvu0bf08jcoi4epn8cutjm8 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Alexandros Kontonikas & Paulo Maio & Zivile Zekaite, 2016. "Monetary Policy and Corporate Bond Returns," Working Papers 2016_05, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    16. Kurt G. Lunsford, 2020. "Policy Language and Information Effects in the Early Days of Federal Reserve Forward Guidance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2899-2934, September.
    17. Takaoka, Sumiko & Takahashi, Koji, 2022. "Corporate debt and unconventional monetary policy: The risk-taking channel with bond and loan contracts," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3mgbd73vkp9f9oje7utooe7vpg is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Christophe Blot & Caroline Bozou & Jérôme Creel & Paul Hubert, 2021. "Are all Central Bank Asset Purchases the Same? Different Rationales, Different Effects," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03554141, HAL.
    20. Bertsch, Christoph & Hull, Isaiah & Qi, Yingjie & Zhang, Xin, 2020. "Bank misconduct and online lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    21. Christophe Blot & Paul Hubert & Jérôme Creel & Caroline Bozou, 2023. "The conditionality of monetary policy instruments," Working Papers hal-04159848, HAL.
    22. van Holle, Frederiek, 2017. "Essays in empirical finance and monetary policy," Other publications TiSEM 30d11a4b-7bc9-4c81-ad24-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E25 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Aggregate Factor Income Distribution
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ijc:ijcjou:y:2021:q:5:a:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bank for International Settlements (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ijcb.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.