We study how debt market frictions constraining the ability to replace bank with bond financing during a tightening in bank credit supply affect corporate yield spreads. We document that more inflexible firms suffer bigger increases in bond yield spreads as bank credit supply tightens. Debt...

We study the relation between information and fire sales during a crisis. We argue that the reinforcing effect of funding liquidity on market liquidity is weaker when investors have more information about the assets facing sudden price drops (Brunnermeier and Pedersen, 2009). We focus on the...

The traditional theory of commercial banking explains maturity transformation and liquidity provision assuming no asymmetric information and no excess profits. It captures the possibility of bank runs and business cycle risk; but it ignores the moral hazard problems connected with risk-taking by...

Following the financial crisis of 2008/9, there has been renewed interest in what Greenwald and Stiglitz dubbed ‘pecuniary externalities’. Two that affect borrowers and lenders balance sheets in pro-cyclical fashion are described, along with measures that might help curb their destabilising...

In the context of revived output growth and business confidence in the UK, we analyse forward guidance as a ‘coordination device’, indicating that monetary accommodation will be available for a welcome and long-awaited shift out of prolonged recession. As David Miles has emphasised, however,...

European markets for sovereign bonds have been prone to panic as investors fly to safety whenever they think others will. Calvo (1988) had warned of the possibility of multiple equilibria in bond markets; and argued for official action to limit interest rate rises so as rule out a...

Using a variant of the Cagan model with rational expectations, this paper shows that expected stabilization can result in a budget deficit in excess of the maximum inflation tax. A cap on the deficit dampens inflation expectations and raises real balances, thus increasing the yield of the...

The promising prospect of a ‘New Economy’ in the US attracted substantial equity inflows in the late 1990s, helping to finance the country’s burgeoning current account deficit. After peaking in 2000, however, US stocks fell by some 8 trillion dollars in value. To assess the welfare effects...

Using Krugman's (1991) target zone model, we find an explicit, sub-game perfect solution for a central bank wishing to stabilize the exchange rate given proportional costs of intervention. We demonstrate, however, that precommitment to narrower bands would yield a welfare gain - which provides a...

Recent empirical research by Mark Taylor and co-authors has found evidence of hybrid dynamics for real exchange rates. While there is a random walk near equilibrium, for real exchange rates some distance from equilibrium there is mean-reversion which increases with the degree of misalignment. An...