Recent trends toward greater central bank independence and the adoption of formal inflation targeting by several countries have served to emphasise the importance of communication policy. In this paper, we explore some of the economic effects of public information that arise whenever public...

Securitization was meant to disperse credit risk to those who were better able to bear it. In practice, securitization appears to have concentrated the risks in the financial intermediary sector itself. This paper outlines an accounting framework for the financial system for assessing the impact...

In a financial system where balance sheets are continuously marked to market, asset price changes show up immediately in changes in net worth, and elicit responses from financial intermediaries, who adjust the size of their balance sheets. We document evidence that marked to market leverage is...

This paper examines the impact of public information in an economy where agents also have diverse private information. Since disclosures by central banks are an important source of public information, we are able to assess how the words of central bankers shape expectations, in addition to their...

This paper explores the pricing of debt in a financial system where the assets that borrowers hold to meet their obligations include claims against other borrowers. Assessing financial claims in a system context captures features that are missing in a partial equilibrium setting. It is possible...

This paper presents a "time-to-build" theory of supply chains which implies a key role for the financing of working capital as a determinant of supply chain length. We apply our theory to offshoring and trade, where firms strike a balance between the productivity gain due to offshoring against...

This paper introduces a new dataset on emerging market sovereign bonds, distinguishing between the currency of denomination and the residence of investors. Our dataset is on long-term government bonds and provides a more complete coverage of bonds issued in domestic markets. We document several...

In analysing the performance of the international monetary and financial system (IMFS), too much attention has been paid to the current account and far too little to the capital account. This is true of both formal analytical models and historical narratives. This approach may be reasonable when...

We investigate global factors associated with bank capital flows. We formulate a model of the international banking system where global banks interact with local banks. The solution highlights the bank leverage cycle as the determinant of the transmission of financial conditions across borders...

Securitization was meant to disperse credit risk to those who were better able to bear it. In practice, securitization appears to have concentrated the risks in the financial intermediary sector itself. This paper outlines an accounting framework for the financial system for assessing the impact...