This paper explores whether different funding structures – including the source, instrument, currency, and counterparty location of funding – affected the extent of financial stress experienced in different countries and sectors during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. We measure...

This paper investigates the real-time forecast performance of the Bank of England's main DSGE model, COMPASS, before, during and after the financial crisis with reference to statistical and judgemental benchmarks. A general finding is that COMPASS's relative forecast performance improves as the...

Currency portfolios exhibit asymmetric correlations: during periods of bear, volatile world equity markets, currency portfolios provide different hedging benefits than in bull markets. I show how these time-varying hedging benefits depend on currency characteristics. This paper also illustrates...

In this paper we develop an index to monitor the intensity of financial stress in the UK over a period of 45 years. By aggregating various market-based indicators of financial stress from six major markets, we allow each indicator to be assessed in terms of its systemic importance. This enables...

Recent empirical evidence on the cross-country synchronization of credit spreads in response to US monetary policy shocks has led to the notion of an ‘international credit channel' of US monetary policy. This paper provides novel evidence on the existence of an international credit channel for...

This paper proposes a positive theory of the link between banks’ capitalisation and their liquidity-risk taking as well as the severity of fire-sale problems and liquidity crises. In the basic framework of an individual bank’s decisions, we find that banks’ incentives to hold liquidity for...

This paper develops a model featuring both a macroeconomic and a financial friction that speaks to the interaction between monetary and macroprudential policy and to the role of US monetary and regulatory policy in the run up to the Great Recession. There are two main results. First, real...

In line with most of the developed world, the United Kingdom experienced in 2008–09 its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1920s and 30s: the Great Recession. But despite the 6% peak-to-trough fall in output (as measured by real gross value added at basic prices) the...