This paper develops a DSGE model which explains variation in the nominal and real term structure along with inflation surveys and four macro variables in the UK economy. The model is estimated based on a third-order approximation to allow for time-varying term premia. We find a fall in nominal...

In response to an interest rate change, mortgagors in the United Kingdom and United States adjust their spending significantly (especially on durable goods) but outright home-owners do not. While the dollar change in mortgage payments is nearly three times larger in the United Kingdom than in...

Over the past four decades, real interest rates have risen then fallen across the industrialised world. Over the same period, nominal investment rates fell, while house prices and household debt ratios rose. I explain these four trends with a fifth — the widespread fall in the relative price...

We use a structural overlapping-generations model to quantify the effects of five exogenous forces that drive the global trend equilibrium real interest rate, Global R*. We use data for 31 countries to extract the global trend components of the five drivers and to derive an empirical estimate of...

The world has undergone substantial structural change over recent decades, with profound implications for the long-run policy landscape. We focus on two key trends. First, the secular decline in risk-free interest rates, suggesting a fall in the long-run global equilibrium interest rate, Global...

This paper develops a tractable capitalist-worker New Keynesian model to study the interaction of fiscal policy and household heterogeneity. Workers can save in bonds subject to portfolio adjustment costs; firm ownership is concentrated among capitalists who do not supply labor. The model...

This paper develops a DSGE model in which banks use short-term deposits to provide firms with long-term credit. The demand for long-term credit arises because firms borrow in order to finance their capital stock which they only adjust at infrequent intervals. We show within a real business cycle...

This paper shows that lending relationships insulate corporate investment from fluctuations in collateral values. We construct a novel database covering the banking relationships of private and public UK firms and their individual directors. The sensitivity of corporate investment to changes in...

Firms with high pre-crisis cash holdings invested significantly more than their cash-poor rivals during the global financial crisis and especially so during the recovery phase. This resulted in a persistent and growing investment gap between cash-rich and cash-poor firms. Cash especially...

Using a structural vector autoregression, we document that a contractionary monetary policy shock triggers a decline in durable and non-durable outputs as well as a contraction in bank equity and a rise in the excess bond premium. The latter points to an important transmission channel of...