Mortgage loans are a striking example of a persistent nominal rigidity. As a result, under incomplete markets, monetary policy affects decisions through the cost of new mortgage borrowing and the value of payments on outstanding debt. Observed debt levels and payment to income ratios suggest the...

We investigate the possible existence of asymmetries among Euro Area countries reactions to the European Central Bank monetary policy. Our analysis is based on a Structural Dynamic Factor model estimated on a large panel of quarterly variables including data on the aggregate Euro Area, as well...

An economy is in a liquidity trap when monetary policy cannot influence either real or nominal variables of interest. A necessary condition for this is that the short nominal interest rate is constrained by its lower bound, typically zero. The paper considers two small analytical models, one...

Jim Tobin, who died on March 11, 2002 at the age of 84, was one of giants of economics of the second half of the twentieth century and the greatest macroeconomist of his generation. Tobin’s influence on macroeconomic theory is so pervasive - so much part of our professional ‘acquis’ - that...

This paper provides a fully micro-founded New Keynesian framework to study the interaction between oil price volatility, pricing behavior of firms and monetary policy. We show that when oil has low substitutability, firms find it optimal to charge higher relative prices as a premium in...

The recent rapid growth of China’s economy has reopened historical debate about the extent to which it prospered during the Míng and Qīng dynasties (1368-1911) through developing a significant market orientation on the base of its underlying agricultural bureaucratic feudalism. As a...

This paper focuses on the impact of financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and of their regulation on the post-crisis transformation of securities and derivatives markets. It examines, in particular, the role that trading and post-trading FMIs, and their new regulatory regime, are playing in...

What makes futures hedge funds fail? The common ingredient is over betting and not being diversified in some bad scenarios that can lead to disaster. Once troubles arise, it is difficult to take the necessary actions that eliminate the problem. Moreover, many hedge fund operators tend not to...

This paper examines the concept of systemic risk and provides an intuitive account of the economic thought on systems and the development of the notion of systemic risk. It is illustrated by putting the ideas of system, systemic risk and endogenous risk in a historial perspective.

This paper focuses on IT-enabled credit risk modernisation in commercial retail banking. The empirical material is based upon a longitudinal case study conducted during 1993–1996 using an interpretive approach. It documents the introduction of a leading-edge computer-based decision support...