I test for the existence of a bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission. I identify bank lending channel effects with a simple model of bank behavior incorporating long-term customer relationships. The model suggests that when a large fraction of bank assets is held in loans,...

Empirical estimates of the benefit of financial intermediation are constructed by examining the role played by local banks in facilitating syndicated loans to borrowers in emerging market countries. Assuming that local banks possess a superior monitoring ability, the market is ideal for studying...

The Tequila Effect hypothesis states that the economic crisis that affected several South American countries in 1995 was caused by an exogenous capital flight triggered by the loss of confidence of foreign investors after the collapse of the Mexican peso in December 1994. I analyze the recent...

In this paper, we examine the role of "financial factors" in Japan and attempt to gauge their recent impact on the Japanese economy. First, we find that proxies for financial factors enter significantly in behavioral equations for loan standards, loan demand and aggregate demand, although these...

Macroeconomists have long recognized that activity-gap measures are unreliable in real time and that this can present serious difficulties for stabilization policy. This paper investigates whether the credit-to-GDP ratio gap, which has been proposed as a reference point for accumulating...