Using U.S. data from 1929 to 2013, we show that elevated credit-market sentiment in year t-2 is associated with a decline in economic activity in years t through t+2. Underlying this result is the existence of predictable mean reversion in credit-market conditions. That is, when our sentiment...

This paper examines to what extent the build-up of global imbalances since the mid-1990s can be explained in a purely real open-economy DSGE model in which agents' perceptions of long-run growth are based on filtering observed changes in productivity. We show that long-run growth estimates based...

The paper draws lessons from the experience of the past year for the conduct of central banks in the pursuit of macroeconomic and financial stability. Macroeconomic stability is defined as either price stability or as price stability and sustainable output or employment growth. Financial...

This paper outlines important lessons for monetary policy. In particular, the role of inflation targeting, which was much acclaimed prior to the financial crisis and since then has not lost much of its endorsement, is critically reviewed. Ignoring the relation between monetary policy and asset...

The recent crisis underlined that proper estimation of distress-dependence amongst banks in a global system is essential for financial stability assessment. We present a set of banking stability measures embedding banks’ linear (correlation) and nonlinear distress-dependence, and their changes...

We explore a view of the crisis as a shock to investor sentiment that led to the collapse of a bubble or pyramid scheme in financial markets. We embed this view in a standard model of the financial accelerator and explore its empirical and policy implications. In particular, we show how the...

The 2007-2009 recession is characterized by: a large drop in employment, an unprecedented decline in firm entry, and a slow recovery. Using confidential firm-level data, I show that financial constraints reduced employment growth in small relative to large firms by 4.8 to 10.5 percentage points....

Firms with limited internal liquidity significantly increased prices in 2008, while their liquidity unconstrained counterparts slashed prices. Differences in the firms' price-setting behavior were concentrated in sectors likely characterized by customer markets. We develop a model, in which...

We study a dynamic economy where credit is limited by insufficient collateral and, as a result, investment and output are too low. In this environment, changes in investor sentiment or market expectations can give rise to credit bubbles, that is, expansions in credit that are backed not by...

This paper proposes an alternative explanation to recurrent hyperinflations other than bounded rationality by explicitly considering the global dynamics of an economy with credit market frictions. In this paper we show that hyperinflations are self-generated and are manifestations of the...