With recourse to archival, printed primary, and secondary sources, this paper reconstructs global real interest rates on an annual basis going back to the 14th century, covering 78% of advanced economy GDP over time. I show that across successive monetary and fiscal regimes, and a variety of...

We investigate the role of private sector credit in shaping the severity of recessions. Using a sample of 130 downturns in 26 advanced economies since the 1970s, we assess whether the growth or level of credit is the better predictor of the severity of a recession. In addition to GDP we examine...

This paper investigates whether movements in the Bank of England's interest rate hindered the development of the United States by transmitting or amplifying crises during the first age of financial globalisation. Evidence that US monetary and financial developments entered into the Bank's...

This paper presents a new dataset for the annual risk-free rate in both nominal and real terms going back to the 13th century. On this basis, we establish for the first time a long-term comparative investigation of ‘bond bull markets'. It is shown that the global risk-free rate in July 2016...

With the aim to provide a detailed understanding of global financial cycles and their relevance over time, we analyse co-movement in credit, house prices, equity prices, and interest rates across 17 advanced economies over 130 years. Using a time-varying dynamic factor model, we observe global...

Using a panel dataset of 26 advanced economies over the five decades preceding the Covid crisis, we show that inequality rises following recessions and that rapid credit growth in the run up to a downturn exacerbates that effect. A one standard deviation credit boom leads to a 40% amplification...

This paper examines the impact that payment splitting could have upon the liquidity requirements and efficiency of a large-value payment system, such as the United Kingdom's CHAPS. Using the Bank of Finland Payment and Settlement Simulator and real UK payments data we find that payment splitting...

This paper studies the optimal intraday pricing in payment systems and its impact on banks' payment behaviour and intraday liquidity management. A model is developed to compare the performance of two different mechanisms to reduce payment delay: a throughput guideline and a tariff that varies...

We use payments data for the period 2006-09 to study the impact of the global financial crisis on payment patterns in CHAPS, the United Kingdom's large-value wholesale payments system. CHAPS functioned smoothly throughout the crisis and all CHAPS settlement banks continued to meet their payment...

This paper estimates the intraday value of money implicit in the UK unsecured overnight money market. Using transactions data on overnight loans advanced through the UK large-value payments system (CHAPS) in 2003-09, we find a positive and economically significant intraday interest rate. While...