"We examine how financial expansion and contraction cycles affect the broader economy through their impact on 8 real economic sectors in a panel of 28 countries over 1960-2005, paying particular attention to large, or sharp, contractions and magnifying and mitigating factors. Overall, the...

This paper presents evidence that the cost channel' may be an important part of the monetary transmission mechanism. We argue that if working capital is an essential component of production and distribution, monetary contractions can affect output through a supply channel as well as the...

This paper argues that, in studying the monetary policy transmission process, more emphasis should be given to the systematic portion of policy behavior and correspondingly less to random shocks basically because shocks account for a very small fraction of policy-instrument variability. Analysis...

Available studies on asymmetries in the monetary transmission mechanism within Europe are invariably based on macro-economic evidence: such evidence is abundant but often contradictory. This paper takes a different route by using micro-economic data. We use the information contained in the...

Among the many challenges facing the new Eurosystem is the possibility that the regions of the euro area will respond differently to interest rate changes. In this essay, I provide evidence that differences in financial structure are the proximate cause for these national asymmetries in the...

Using confidential regulatory firm-bank-loan level data from the U.S., we document four new facts about the credit market. First, private SMEs typically utilize all available bank credit which comprises their entire balance sheet debt, compared to large listed firms who can switch between...

Many consumers below the top of the distribution of a representative population by cognitive abilities barely react to monetary and fiscal policies that aim to stimulate consumption and borrowing, even when they are financially unconstrained and despite substantial debt capacity. Differences in...

We study the effects of monetary and fiscal policy in a heterogeneous-agent model where households have present-biased time preferences and naive beliefs. The model features a liquid asset and illiquid home equity, which households can use as collateral for borrowing. Because present bias...

We study the effects of monetary-policy-induced changes in Tobin's q on corporate investment and capital structure. We develop a theory of the mechanism, provide empirical evidence, evaluate the ability of the quantitative theory to match the evidence, and quantify the relevance for monetary...

This paper studies the transmission channels of monetary and macroprudential policies in an open economy framework and evaluates the normative implications for international spillovers and global welfare. An analytical decomposition uncovers the prominent role of expenditure switching for...