Web Resources for Econ 353
Money, Banking, and Financial Institutions

Last Updated: 20 August 2007

Latest Course Offering: Fall 2007

Econ 353 Home Page:

http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ353/tesfatsion/

Course Instructor:

Professor Leigh Tesfatsion

http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/

tesfatsi AT iastate.edu

Chapter 1: Introduction

• The Economagic Economic Time Series Page maintained by Economagic Inc. provides access to an extensive variety of economic time series (primarily U.S. data) with customized graphing and printing facilities.

• General Resources on Macro and Financial Economics

• Frederic S. Mishkin (Columbia University, NY) maintains a companion website for his text Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets (seventh addition) that features audio clips, teaching tips, links to relevant data sources, and Federal Reserve websites.

• The U.S. Federal Reserve Board maintains up-to-date Releases of Financial Time Series Data available for downloading in a format suitable for Excel spreadsheet table and graphical representations.

• Market Research International (Beaumont, Texas) supports a site titled the Financial Forecast Center. This site provides freely available forecasts for stock prices, interest rates, foreign exchange rates, and other key economic indicators. Current economic indicators and historical data/graphs are also provided.

• Business Week is a weekly economic news magazine, with a stress on the U.S.

• CNN Financial Pages

• The Economist is a highly regarded economic news magazine with an international orientation.

• The Wall Street Journal is a daily U.S. newspaper featuring both domestic and international news.

• The Financial Times publishes global business news and analysis.

• The New York Times is a daily U.S. newspaper featuring both domestic and international news.

• Staff economists at the RFA (Regional Financial Associates) in West Chester, Pennsylvania, maintain a Website designed for economics students titled The Dismal Scientist. This site provides analysis of major economic events around the world as well as economic profiles of local areas by zip code.

• The Economic Briefings site provides pointers to commentary on current newsworthy economic events. The site is maintained by John Irons as part of the About.com guide to online resources.

• The Global Economic Forum provides commentaries on current economic events by Morgan Stanley economists (Steven Roach).

• The Institute for International Economics (IIE) is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy. The IIE attempts to anticipate emerging issues and to be ready with practical ideas to inform and shape public debate. Linked to the IIE home page is a "hot topics" site that provides commentaries, reports, and links focusing on important topical issues in international economics.

• J. Bradford DeLong and Lawrence H. Summers, "The `New Economy': Background, Historical Perspective, Questions, and Speculations" (html,84K), Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Review, Volume 86, Number 4, Fourth Quarter 2001, pages 29-59.

• Nouriel Roubini (Stern School of Business, New York University) maintains a website on Global Economic Events that includes many resources related to money, banking, and financial institutions.

• Speeches by Alan Greenspan (out-going Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board) and other top Fed officers on the state of the U.S. economy can be found at the Federal Reserve Board Website.

Chapter 2:Overview of the Financial System

• James Garven (Business Administration, Louisiana State University) maintains a guide to online financial economics resources at a website titled FINWeb. Included among these resources are journals, working papers, databases, and other finance-related websites.

• Marc R. Saidenberg and Philip E. Strahan, "Are Banks Still Important for Financing Large Businesses?," Current Issues, Volume 5, Number 12, August 1999, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRB-NY). To access this publication, visit the FRB-NY Research and Data Site.

Chapter 3: What is Money?

• The U.S. Department of the Treasury maintains a variety of sites on U.S. coins and currency, and the history of the money in the U.S., that can be accessed through their Educational Site.

• The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (Department of the Treasury) maintains a variety of websites related to money, including Money Facts and The New Color of Money focused on the newly redesigned $20 bill issued by the U.S. Federal Reserve System.

• The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco maintains an on-line version of a 1995 Annual Report titled A Brief History of Our Nation's Paper Money.

• The U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) maintains on-line documentary materials for a variety of NOVA Programs Featuring Topics Related to Money

• A Website on the History of Money is maintained by Glyn Davies and Roy Davies (University of Exeter, UK). See, also, the website maintained by Roy Davies titled Money: Past, Present, and Future which provides sources of information on monetary history, contemporary developments, and the prospects for electronic money.

• Dr. Phillip M. Hallam-Baker (World Wide Web Consortium) maintains a website on Electronic Payment Schemes.

• John B. Taylor (Economics Professor at Stanford University, and Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in 2002) delivered a presentation at the University of Chicago in November 2002 titled A Half-Century of Changes in Monetary Policy.

Chapters 4 and 5 (Bond Markets and Interest Rates)

• Clifford W. Smith (Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester) maintains a site titled Bonds as part of the on-line Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. This site gives clear concise descriptions of the key attributes of U.S. Government bonds, corporate bonds, and municipal bonds.

• The U.S. Federal Reserve Board maintains up-to-date Releases of Financial Time Series Data available for downloading in a format suitable for Excel spreadsheet table and graphical representations.

• Detailed information about Treasury Bills, Bonds, and Notes

• Specific information about Treasury Inflation-Indexed Securities (TIPS)

• TIAA-CREF provides access to various Publications by TIAA-CREF Institute researchers and other researchers that focus on various topics related to portfolio investment in bonds and stocks.

• BondMarkets.Com provides research reports, links, newsletters and updates, and industry training manuals, materials, and tools related to the bond market.

• Press releases by the Federal Reserve Board in 2004 can be found at the Federal Reserve Board Press Releases Site.

• Weekly releases of data regarding current interest rates for a variety of U.S. financial instruments are provided at the Federal Reserve Statistical Release Site.

• Historical, current, and forecasted data on a variety of financial instruments (stocks, stock indexes, interest rates, exchange rates, etc.) are reported at The Financial Forecast Center.

• Articles focusing on important current events related to the determination of interest rates can often be found in Business Week. Of particular interest for Mishkin Chapter 4 are the articles reported under BW's "Treasury Market Watch," where events significant for the determination of prices and interest rates on U.s. Treasury instruments are reported.

• Investopedia.com maintains a tutorial site on Reading Financial Tables and Quotes.

Chapter 7:The Stock Market, the Theory of Rational Expectations, and the Efficient Market Hypothesis

• John Duca, How Does the Stock Market Affect the Economy?, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Southwest Economy, September/October 2001.

• William N. Goetzmann (Yale School of Management), Chapter VIII: Information and the Efficiency of the Capital Markets (html), in An Introduction to Investment Theory. (Last Accessed: 10/10/05)

• Detailed stock market data (e.g., indices for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ composite) are provided by the Financial Forecast Center

• Detailed stock quotes, charts, and historical stock data can also be accessed at http://stocks.tradingcharts.com

• Free real-time streaming of stock market data is provided by Lycos Inc. at http://finance.lycos.com/home/livecharts

• An introductory discussion of the Efficient Market Hypothesis is provided at http://www.investorhome.com/emh.htm

• InvestorHome.Com maintains an interesting site called Historical Stock Market Anomalies with links to resource sites on a various forms of anomalies (systematic deviations from the Efficient Market Hypothesis) alleged by researchers to have been found in financial market data.

• "Dividend's End," The Economist, Print Edition, January 10, 2002, available online.

• Dolan Capital Management maintains a Primer on Equity Valuation that reviews a number of different approaches to the valuation of common stock shares.

• Dr. Edward Yardeni, Stock Valuation Models (pdf,31pp), Topical Study No. 58, Prudential Financial, January 6, 2003.

• Geoffrey Friesen (Dept. of Finance, ISU) and Paul Weller (Dept. of Finance, U of Iowa), "Quantifying Cognitive Biases in Analyst Earnings Forecasts," Working Paper, Department of Finance, ISU, October 2003.

Chapters 17 and 18: International Aspects

• The U.S. Federal Reserve Board reports current and historical exchange rates for many countries, available for downloading in a format suitable for Excel spreadsheet table and graphical representations, at Releases of Financial Time Series Data

• Detailed information about the foreign exchange market is provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at http://www.newyorkfed.org/education/addpub/usfxm/chap1.pdf

• Market rates and time charts for the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar to major world currencies can be accessed by clicking on "Foreign Exchange" at the following site: http://quotes.ino.com/chart/

• The Federal Reserve Bank of New York maintains a website on U.S. Foreign Exchange Intervention. This is Fedpoint publication number 44, one of the many Fedpoint publications provided at the Fedpoint Publications website listed below under Part 4.

• The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) provides resource materials related to purchasing power parity (PPP), including statistics, research, publications, and OECD meetings on PPP, at its Purchasing Power Home Page

• European Union in the US is an official site sponsored by the European Union that provides information specifically directed towards Americans regarding the history, organization, and activities of the European Union.

• Roy Davies maintains a resource website on the Euro titled The Euro -- Europe's Single Common Currency. Links are provided to official European Union information sources as well as to other sources expressing a variety of viewpoints.

• The European Central Bank maintains a general resource site on the introduction of the euro titled the Euro Site.

• Exchange rates, balance of payments, and trade data are provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis at http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred/data/exchange.html

• Home page for the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides information about special drawing rights (SDRs), allocation, valuation, and an SDR users' guide at http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/sdr.htm

• Anne O. Krueger, "Argentina: Remaining Economic Challenges," Speech, International Monetary Fund, March 31, 2004 (html,8pp.).

• Ian Vasquez, "IMF: A Political Institution," The Cato Institute, March 9, 2004 (html,2pp.).

• Eva Cheng, "What Caused the World's Largest Default?", Green Left Weekly, Online Edition, 2002 (html,5pp.).

• Nouriel Roubini (Stern School of Business, New York University) maintains a resource site titled European Monetary Union and the Euro that provides notes, discussion questions, and readings related to the recent introduction of the euro among the member countries of the European Monetary Union.

• Patricia Pollard, A Look Inside Two Central Banks: The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, January/February 2003.

• Mark Bernkopf (Arlington, Virginia) maintains a website titled the Central Banking Resource Center covering domestic and foreign central banking institutions and issues.

• Nouriel Roubini (Stern School of Business, New York University) maintains a website on Current Controversies in Macroeconomics that provides an extensive list of pointers to lecture materials, research articles, and news commentary on macroeconomic issues, including issues relevant for international financial markets.

Chapter 8 (Part A): Financial Structure

• 2001 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph Stiglitz for work on Markets with Asymmetric Information.

• Home page of the Enron Corporation.

• John C. Coffee, Jr., "What Caused Enron?: A Capsule Social and Economic History of the 1990's" (pdf,51pp.), Working Paper No. 214, The Center for Law and Economic Studies, Columbia Law School, New York, NY, January 20, 2003.
  Abstract: Between January 1997 and June 2002, approximately 10% of all listed companies in the United States announced at least one financial statement "restatement" -- i.e., a financial irregularity that was in need of correction. The author uses Enron, WorldCom and other specific case histories to investigate the three plausible explanations for this phenomenon: the "Gatekeeper Story"; the "Misaligned Incentives Story"; and the "Herding Story."

  Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, Enron Fraud Website.

  Note: Lerach et al. are the attorneys who filed a consolidated class action lawsuit against Enron Corporation in the U.S. District Court in Houston. Included at this website are resources related to this lawsuit, including an explanation of the suit, recent court documents, press releases, and related articles. Of particular interest is a 2004 paper by attorney William S. Lerach titled "The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost" linked to this website.

  Government Documents on the Enron Corporation maintained by Purdue University Library.

  Enron Timeline (Wikpedia).

  Houston Chronicle, Special Report: Enron.

  Note: This site provides a number of resources related to Enron that appear to be current (as of 11/7/05), including: Trial Calendar; Prosecution Scorecard; papers detailing the fall of Enron (including some primary materials); papers focusing on the nature of the accusations; and papers focusing on the investigations of Enron that have been launched.

  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) maintains a website titled FERC: Information Released in Enron Investigation.

  A statement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 can be found at this website maintained by FindLaw.com.

  A Summary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 can be found at this website maintained by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Of particular interest is a section of this website that discusses How the Sarbanes-Oxley Act Affects the Accounting Profession.

Chapter 8 (Part B): Economic Development and Financial Crises

• Ross Levine, "More on Finance and Growth: More Finance, More Growth?, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, July/August 2003.

• A speech by Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, titled "Lessons from the Global Crises" and delivered on September 27, 1999, can be found at the Federal Reserve Board Website for 1999 Documents.

• Nouriel Roubini (Stern School of Business, New York University) maintains a website on Current Controversies in Macroeconomics that includes materials on recent and past financial crises arising in a variety of different countries.

• The World Bank is meant to be a source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. The home page of the World Bank provides detailed information about its history, mission, organization, rules of operation, and ongoing projects.

• David Ellerman, Can the World Bank be Fixed?, Post-Autistic Economics Review, Issue No. 33, 14 September 2005, article 1.
  Abstract: This provocative and controversial article argues that most aid and "help" is actually unhelpful in the sense of either overriding or undercutting the autonomy of those being "helped." The author argues, in particular, that the World Bank is the primary example over the last half century of the failures of social engineering to "engineer" development. Moreover, frustration over these failures, particularly in Africa, is now leading the World Bank and many other development agencies towards the other form of unhelpful help, namely, long-term charitable relief. The author concludes that the fundamental conundrum of development assistance is how to encourage autonomous development on the part of those in need of help without either overriding or undercutting autonomy through social engineering or long-term charitable relief.

Chapter 9: Challenges to Traditional Banking

Website Related to Grameen Banking and the Microfinance Movement:

• The Official Grameen Bank Website

• The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) maintains a website on the Grameen Bank that explains the basic structure and operation of the bank, the Grameen banking philosophy, and the founding of the bank by Dr. Muhammad Yunus in 1976.

• David Bornstein, "The Barefoot Bank with Cheek", The Atlantic Monthly, December 1995.
  Abstract: This article discusses, in personal anecdotal terms, the rubber-hits-the-road operation of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and the various ways in which the bank has favorably affected the lives of the people to whom it has lent small start-up loans.

  Evaristus Mainsah, Schuyler R. Heuer, Aprajita Kalra, and Qiulin Zhang (2004), Grameen Bank: Taking Capitalism to the Poor, Columbia Business School, CHAZEN Web Journal of International Business, Spring.

  Imran Matin (February 2002), "New Thinking and New Forms of Microfinancial Service Provision in Bangladesh: A Comparative Study of ASA, SafeSave, and Gono Bima" (html), Finance and Development Research Programme, Working Paper No. 37, University of Manchester, United Kingdom, February, 2002.

  Abstract:This paper is a carefully documented study of available evidence regarding innovation in product design and organizational arrangements in the contemporary microfinance industry in Bangladesh. The study argues that a "one size fits all" approach (e.g., global advocacy of the Grameen Bank mode of operation) is not appropriate. The study reaches the cautiously hopeful conclusion that careful tailoring of microfinance products and arrangements to local demand and supply conditions can achieve substantial improvements in the daily lives of the poor.

  Daniel Pearl and Michael M. Phillips, "Grameen Bank, Which Pioneered Loans for the Poor, Has Hit a Repayment Snag", Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2001.

  Abstract: This article discusses some purported financial problems currently being experienced by the Grameen Bank. The reporters are critical of Grameen Bank's reporting procedures and suggest that problems are being masked by non-standard accounting procedures. Anecdotal evidence is also given that some loans are being used for consumption rather than productive purposes and that some borrower groups, rather than enforcing repayment discipline on their members, have instead banded together to force Grameen Bank to offer more lenient repayment terms to their members. [NOTE: Daniel Pearl is the reporter who was kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Pakistan early in 2002.]

  Leigh Tesfatsion, "Notes on the Grameen Bank and the Microcredit Movement" (html).

  Muhammad Yunus (December 2001), "The Grameen Bank, Micro-Credit, and the Wall Street Journal", December 2001.

  Abstract: Yunus here responds at length and in great detail to a 27 November 2001 article in the Wall Street Journal by WSJ reporters Daniel Pearl and Michael Phillips that raises questions about the financial soundness and long-run viability of the Grameen Bank. Yumus includes in his response an interesting exchange of email correspondence between himself and Pearl prior to the publication of the WSJ article.

Other Websites Related to Mishkin Chapter 9:

• Mark Guzman, "Bank Competition in the New Economy", Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Southwest Economy, March/April, 2001.

• A March 1, 2002 speech by Edward M. Gramlich (Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors) titled "Lending to Lower-Income Households" focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the Community Reinvestment Act as a means of encouraging lending to low and moderate income borrowers in the United States. This speech can be accessed at Federal Reserve Board Website for 2002 Documents

Chapter 10 and 11: Historical Development of the U.S. Financial Sector and the Evolution of U.S. Financial Regulation

• Kenneth J. Robinson, "Banks Venture Into New Territory", Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Economics and Financial Policy Review, Volume 1, Number 2, 2002.

• A speech by Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, titled "The Evolution of Bank Supervision" and delivered on October 11, 1999, can be found at the Federal Reserve Board Website for 1999 Documents.

• Stephen G. Cecchetti, "The Future of Financial Intermediation and Regulation: An Overview," Current Issues, Volume 5, Number 8, May 1999, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRB-NY). To access this publication, visit the FRB-NY Research and Data Site.

• The Federal Reserve Board maintains a website that explains its structure and operations and also provides recent press releases, testimony, and speeches by Federal Reserve officials.

• The primary mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to protect investors and maintain the integrity of U.S. securities markets. The home page of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission provides detailed information about the SEC's history, mission, rules of operation, and regulatory actions.

• A December 1999 speech by Laurence Meyer (Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors) titled "The Implications of Financial Modernization Legislation for Bank Supervision" that focuses on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, under which key provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 are significantly weakened, can be found at the Federal Reserve Board Website for 1999 Documents.

• A February 3, 2000 speech by Laurence Meyer (Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors) titled "Implementing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" can be found at the Federal Reserve Board Website for 2000 Documents.

• A February 8, 2002 speech by Mark W. Olson (Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors) titled "Implementing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act: Two Years Later" can be found at the Federal Reserve Board Website for 2002 Documents.

• The most important laws that have affected the banking industry in the United States are listed at a website titled Important Banking Legislation, maintained by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

• The most important Federal regulations imposed on depository institutions in the United States are listed and explained in a Regulation website maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

• Resources linked to the home page for the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation include a statement of FDIC law, regulations and related Acts.

• A March 1, 2002 speech by Edward M. Gramlich (Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors) titled "Lending to Lower-Income Households" focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) as a means of encouraging lending to low and moderate income borrowers in the United States. This speech can be accessed at Federal Reserve Board Website for 2002 Documents.

• Jonathan Zinman, "The Efficacy and Efficiency of Credit Market Interventions: Evidence from the Community Reinvestment Act" (pdf, 53pp), Department of Economics, Job Market Paper, MIT, January 28, 2002.
  Using data on both banks and potential commercial borrowers, this study finds that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) does increases credit to small businesses as intended, with little suggestion of crowding out or adverse effects on bank performance.

Chapters 14-18: U.S. Monetary Policy

Federal Reserve System:

• The Federal Reserve Board maintains a website that explains its structure and operations and also provides recent press releases, testimony, and speeches by Federal Reserve officials.

• The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRB-NY) maintains a website titled Fedpoint Publications that provides an extensive list of pointers to FRB-NY publications on the operations of the Federal Reserve System, which is the central bank of the United States. Examples of topics covered include: Buying and selling of Treasury securities; reserves; currency processing and destruction; and open market operations.

• The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago provides a micro database, available for free, that includes the balance sheets and income statements for all U.S. banks that are federally insured. The information starts in 1976 and continues until the present and is stored as SAS XPORT files. The Website also contains documentation on all variables, a short description on how to form consistent time series for many of the major series, and separate files that identify the dates and outcomes of all U.S. bank mergers that have occurred since 1976.

U.S. Monetary Policy:

• John B. Taylor (Economics Professor at Stanford University, and Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in 2002) delivered a presentation at the University of Chicago in November 2002 titled A Half-Century of Changes in Monetary Policy.

• The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco maintains a website titled U.S. Monetary Policy: An Introduction. This site describes U.S. monetary policy as it is currently conducted by answering a series of questions, e.g., how does monetary policy affect the U.S. economy?

• The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis maintains a website titled Monetary Policy Links that provides a list of links to recent publications on monetary policy appearing in a variety of professional and academic outlets.

Copyright © 2006 Leigh Tesfatsion. All Rights Reserved.