We analyse the evolution and main drivers of residential investment, using a panel with quarterly data for 15 advanced economies since the 1970s. Residential investment is a notably volatile component of real GDP in all countries in the sample. We find real house price growth, net migration...

This paper analyses the extent to which the strength of the credit channel is affected by the expansion of domestic banks abroad, widely considered the most important structural change of Colombia banking system in recent years. Using loan-level quarterly data for the period between 2007 and...

Most of the international macro models, in contrast to the data, imply a very high level of risk sharing across countries and very low real exchange rate (RER) volatility relative to output. In this paper we show that a standard two-country two-good model augmented with conintegrated TFP...

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the macroeconomic implications of financial imperfections. It focuses on two major channels through which financial imperfections can affect macroeconomic outcomes. The first channel, which operates through the demand side of finance...

This paper surveys the literature on the linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes. It focuses on three major questions. First, what are the basic theoretical linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes? Second, what is the empirical evidence supporting these...

This paper argues that a measure of lending conditions - Senior Loan Officer (SLO) surveys - offers important insights into the monetary transmission mechanism. Using a Global VAR (GVAR) and SLO survey data from 16 countries, we document bank lending standards' significant role in explaining the...

Motivated by the traditional business cycle approach of Burns and Mitchell (1946), we explore cyclical similarities in financial conditions over time in order to improve our understanding of financial cycles. Looking back at 120 years of data, we find that financial cycles exhibit behaviour...

Collateral constraints widely used in models of financial crises feature a pecuniary externality: Agents do not internalize how borrowing decisions taken in "good times" affect collateral prices during a crisis. We show that agents in a competitive equilibrium borrow more than a financial...

The unconventional shocks and non-linear dynamics behind the high volatility of financial markets present a challenge for the implementation of macroprudential policy. This paper introduces two of these unconventional shocks, news shocks about future fundamentals and regime changes in global...

This paper uses an open economy DSGE model with a commodity sector and nominal and real rigidities to ask what factors account for current account developments in two small commodity exporting countries. We estimate the model, using Bayesian techniques, on Chilean and on New Zealand data, and...