Central bank balance sheets in emerging Asia expanded rapidly over the past decade because of the unprecedented rise in foreign reserve assets. The corresponding expansion of the central banks' liabilities has created dangers - risks of inflation and financial instability and financial market...

Four major central banks have adopted new approaches to policy rate forward guidance with the aim of enhancing the effectiveness of monetary policy at the zero lower bound. In this special feature, we examine these approaches and assess their impact. So far, the forward guidance appears to have...

Prudential tools that target financial stability need to be calibrated at the level of the financial system but implemented at the level of each regulated institution. They require a methodology for the allocation of system-wide risk to the individual institution in line with its systemic...

US dollar credit is growing quickly outside the United States, especially in Asia, and in some economies it has outpaced overall credit growth. Cross-border sources of credit bear watching in view of their record of outgrowing overall credit in credit booms. Foreign currency and cross-border...

A proper understanding of central bank operations in response to the recent financial turmoil and of their implications for the monetary policy stance and for market functioning calls for an understanding of operating frameworks. And yet, not only are these the least familiar aspect of monetary...

The strength of housing markets around the world has helped to cushion the recent slowdown in global economic activity. How long should we expect this to continue? A sample of industrialised countries covering three decades allows us to explore this question through an analysis of major peaks in...

We examine in a unified framework three recent perspectives on country risk=debt intolerance, original sin, and currency mismatches. We find statistical evidence supporting aspects of all three, though the strength of that support varies considerably across hypotheses and a number of open...

Historically, unusually strong increases in credit and asset prices have tended to precede banking crises. Could the current crisis have been anticipated by exploiting this relationship? We explore this question by assessing the out-of-sample performance of leading indicators of banking system...