This paper applies a life-cycle model with individual income uncertainty to investigate the determinants of credit to households. We show that the value of household credit to GDP ratio depends on (i) the lending-deposit interest rate spread, (ii) individual income uncertainty, (iii) individual...

It is well-known that central bank policies affect not only macroeconomic aggregates, but also their distribution across economic agents. Similarly, a number of papers demonstrated that heterogeneity of agents may matter for the transmission of monetary policy on macro variables. Despite this,...

This paper studies of credit rating agency (CRA) downgrade announcements on the value of the Euro and the yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish long-term sovereign bonds during the culmination of the Eurozone debt crisis in 2011-2012. The employed GARCH models show that CRA downgrade...

The paper employs on individual bank data with aim to analyse interest rate pass-through from money market rates to banks’ deposits and lending rates. In the first step, the speed and completeness of interest rate adjustment is assessed. As the sample covers period prior to and after the...

This paper examines the implications of banking competition for the interest rate channel in the Eurozone over the period 2003-2010. Using an Error Correction Model (ECM) approach to measure the long-run and short-run relationships between money market rates, bank interest rates, and our...

In a New Keynesian model with asymmetric information we show that publication of macroeconomic projections and of the future interest rate path by the central bank can improve macroeconomic outcomes. However, the gains from publishing interest rate paths are small relative to those from...

On the basis of a unique database of policy makers’ comments, we find that central bank communication does influence behavior of financial markets. This effect is asymmetric and depends on the contents and direction of the statements. Moreover, we investigate whether individual characteristics...

Since the creation of the euro area significant interest rate spreads have arisen between euro area countries, both for public and private debt. We check whether these spreads could be made to work towards the goal of providing more stability to the euro area. In particular we focus on reducing...

We generalize the concept of the natural rate of interest (Laubach and Williams, 2003; Woodford, 2003) by defining and estimating the the natural yield curve (NYC) - the term structure of natural interest rates. Our motivation stems i.a. from the observation that at times when central banks attempt...

This paper empirically investigates the evolution and the sources of interest rate pass-through heterogeneity in the Eurozone for a sample of 11 euro area countries over the period 2003M1-2011M12. Considering two harmonized bank retail rates, we first estimate single equation error correction...