Assessing the Quality of "Furfine-based" Algorithms - Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Museum & Visits Regional Economy Data & Statistics Careers Blog Press Center

About the New York Fed
- About the New York Fed
- What We Do
- Who We Are
  - Bank Leadership
  - Diversity and Inclusion
- Communities We Serve
- Governance
- More About Us
- At the New York Fed, our mission is to make the U.S. economy stronger and the financial system more stable for all segments of society. We do this by executing monetary policy, providing financial services, supervising banks and conducting research and providing expertise on issues that impact the nation and communities we serve.
  
  Introducing the New York Innovation Center: Delivering a central bank innovation execution
  
  Do you have a request for information and records? Learn how to submit it.
  
  Learn about the history of the New York Fed and central banking in the United States through articles, speeches, photos and video.
Markets & Policy Implementation

Economic Research
- Economic Research
- U.S. Economy
  - Consumer Expectations & Behavior
  - Growth & Inflation
  - Labor Market
  - Financial Stability
  - Banking
- REGIONAL ECONOMY
- RESEARCHERS
  - PUBLICATIONS
  - RESEARCH CENTERS
  - CALENDAR

Financial Institution Supervision
- Financial Institution Supervision
- Supervision & Regulation
  - Circulars
  - Regulations
- Reporting Forms & Instructions
  - Reporting Forms
  - Correspondence
- Bank Applications
- Consumer Protection
  - Community Reinvestment Act Exams
  - Frauds and Scams
- As part of our core mission, we supervise and regulate financial institutions in the Second District. Our primary objective is to maintain a safe and competitive U.S. and global banking system.
  
  The Governance & Culture Reform hub is designed to foster discussion about corporate governance and the reform of culture and behavior in the financial services industry.
  
  Need to file a report with the New York Fed? Here are all of the forms, instructions and other information related to regulatory and statistical reporting in one spot.
  
  The New York Fed works to protect consumers as well as provides information and resources on how to avoid and report specific scams.
Financial Services & Infrastructure
- Financial Services & Infrastructure
- Financial Services & Operations
- Financial Market Infrastructure & Reform
- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York works to promote sound and well-functioning financial systems and markets through its provision of industry and payment services, advancement of infrastructure reform in key markets and training and educational support to international institutions.
  
  The New York Fed provides a wide range of payment services for financial institutions and the U.S. government.
  
  The New York Fed offers the Central Banking Seminar and several specialized courses for central bankers and financial supervisors.
  
  The New York Fed has been working with tri-party repo market participants to make changes to improve the resiliency of the market to financial stress.
Community Development
& Education

Staff Reports

Assessing the Quality of "Furfine-based" Algorithms

October 2012 Number 575

JEL classification: G10, C81

Authors: Olivier Armantier and Adam Copeland

To conduct academic research on the federal funds (fed funds) market, historically one of the most important financial markets in the U.S., some empirical economists have used market level measures published by the Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). To obtain more disaggregate data, some researchers have relied on a separate source of information: individual transactions inferred indirectly from an algorithm based on the work of Furfine (1999). To date, however, the accuracy of this algorithm has not been formally established. In this paper, we conduct a test aimed at assessing the ability of the algorithm to identify correctly individual overnight fed funds transactions conducted by two banks, which are among the most active in the fed funds market. The results are discouraging. We estimate the average type I and type II errors from 2007 to 2011 to be 81% and 23%, respectively. Furthermore, we argue that these errors i) apply to almost half of the algorithm's output, ii) introduce systematic biases, and iii) may not subside when the algorithm's output is aggregated. Our results therefore raise serious concerns about the appropriateness of using the algorithm's output to study the fed funds market. Because the FRBNY Markets Group relies on a different source of data than the algorithm output, our results have no bearing on their understanding of the fed funds market and their calculation of market level measures, including the effective fed funds rate.

Available only in PDF pdf

26 pages / 222 kb

Tools

E-mail Alerts

By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Statement. You can learn more about how we use cookies by reviewing our Privacy Statement.