This paper assesses the linkages between money, credit, house prices and economic activity in industrialised countries over the last three decades. The analysis is based on a fixed-effects panel VAR estimated using quarterly data for 17 industrialized countries spanning the period 1970-2006. The...

The financial crisis has enhanced the need for close monitoring of financial flows in the economy of the euro area and at the global level focusing, in particular, on the development of financial imbalances and financial intermediation. In this context flow-of-funds analysis appears particularly...

This paper provides new evidence on the transmission of monetary policy in the euro area, assessing the impact of an unexpected increase of the short-term interest on the lending and borrowing activity of the different economic sectors. We exploit the information content of the flow-of-funds...

This paper aims to make two contributions: to review the ECB’s non-standard monetary policy measures in response to the financial and sovereign debt crisis against the background of the institutional framework and financial structure of the euro area; and to interpret this response from a...

This paper analyses the role of asset prices in comparison to other factors, in particular exchange rates, as a driver of the US trade balance. It employs a Bayesian structural VAR model that requires imposing only a minimum of economically meaningful sign restrictions. We find that equity...

This paper investigates the role of three likely factors in driving the steady deterioration of the US external balance: US technology developments, changes in the US government fiscal position and the Fed’s monetary policy. Estimating several Vector Autoregressions on US data over the period...

Since the late-1990s, the global economy is characterised by historically low risk premia and an unprecedented widening of external imbalances. This paper explores to what extent these two global trends can be understood as a reaction to three structural shocks in different regions of the global...

We construct, on the basis of an original methodology and database, composite indices to measure domestic financial development in 26 emerging economies, using mature economies as a benchmark. Twenty-two variables are used and grouped according to three broad dimensions: (i) institutions and...

This paper reviews three different concepts of equilibrium exchange rates that are widely used in policy analysis and constitute the backbone of the IMF CGER assessment: the Macroeconomic Balance, the External Sustainability and the reduced form approaches. We raise a number of econometric...

A striking and unexpected feature of the financial crisis has been the sharp appreciation of the US dollar against virtually all currencies globally. The paper finds that negative US-specific macroeconomic shocks during the crisis have triggered a significant strengthening of the US dollar,...