This paper simulates the minimum capital requirements for the wholesale exposures of a medium-sized bank in each EMU country depending on the credit rating agencies chosen by the bank to risk-weight its exposures in the standardised approach to credit risk in Basel II. Three main results emerge...

We use a dynamic general equilibrium model featuring a banking sector to assess the interaction between macroprudential policy and monetary policy. We find that in “normal” times (when the economic cycle is driven by supply shocks) macroprudential policy generates only modest benefits for...

Basel III has introduced a non-risk-weighted leverage ratio requirement (LRR) which complements the internal ratings based (IRB) capital requirements. It provides a backstop against model risk which arises if some loans get incorrectly rated and become toxic. We study the effects of the LRR on...

Following the adoption by the Basel Committee of new capital rules for banks, a process is now taking place in the EU to transpose the rules into Community law and, ultimately, into national legislation. This paper gives an overview of the main issues that relate to the EU implementation, mainly...

We consider a simple extension of the basic new-Keynesian setup in which we relaxthe assumption of frictionless financial markets. In our economy, asymmetricinformation and default risk lead banks to optimally charge a lending rate above therisk-free rate. Our contribution is threefold. First,...

While domestic interbank markets are often considered to work in an efficient way, cross-country bank lending appears to be subjected to market imperfections leading to persistent interest rate differentials. In a model where banks need to cope with liquidity shocks by borrowing or by...

This paper considers the role of foreign investors in developed-country equity markets. It presents a quantitative model of trading that is built around two new assumptions: (i) both the foreign and domestic investor populations contain investors of different sophistication, and (ii) investor...

We study the functioning and possible breakdown of the interbank market in the presence of counterparty risk. We allow banks to have private information about the risk of their assets. We show how banks’ asset risk affects funding liquidity in the interbank market. Several interbank market...

We consider a simple extension of the basic new-Keynesian setup in which we relax the assumption of frictionless financial markets. In our economy, asymmetric information and default risk lead banks to optimally charge a lending rate above the risk-free rate. Our contribution is threefold....

We investigate the role of economic transparency within the framework of one of Townsend’s models of ‘forecasting the forecasts of others’. The equilibrium has the property that ‘higher order beliefs’ are coordinated into a finite-dimensional setup that is amenable to address monetary...