This paper analyses the nominal and real interest rate term structures in the United Kingdom over the fifteen-year period that the UK monetary authorities have pursued an explicit inflation target, using a four-factor essentially affine term structure model. The model imposes no-arbitrage...

Market-based measures of inflation expectations can be derived either from the difference between yields on nominal and inflation-linked government bonds or from inflation swap rates. These measures are important indicators of the outlook for inflation and are monitored regularly by the United...

Credit and interest rate risk in the banking book are the two most important risks faced by commercial banks. In this paper we derive a consistent and general framework to measure the integrated impact of both risks on banks' portfolios. The framework accounts for all sources of credit risk and...

We examine the impact of the first phase of the Bank of England's quantitative easing (QE) programme during March 2009 to January 2010 on the UK government bond (gilt) market, using high-frequency disaggregated data on individual gilts. We find that: QE announcements took varying amounts of time...

As part of its response to the global banking crisis and a sharp downturn in domestic economic prospects, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) began a programme of large-scale asset purchases (commonly referred to as quantitative easing or QE) in March 2009, with the aim of...

Studies of the Bank of England's quantitative easing (QE) policy have tended to focus on its impact on financial markets and the broader macroeconomy. Less attention has been given to the effect on banks' balance sheets and bank lending. In this paper we use a new non-publicly available panel...

In this paper we assess the macroeconomic effects of two of the flagship unconventional monetary policies used by the Bank of England during the later stages of the global economic crisis: additional quantitative easing (QE) and the introduction of the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS). We argue...

The current slump in the UK housing market has coincided with record increases in mortgage arrears and possessions. Falling nominal house prices reduce the amount of unwithdrawn equity in housing and, under certain conditions, provide incentives for borrowers to accumulate arrears and for...

Most tests of preferred habitat theory are indirect; they infer the existence of preferred habitat behaviour in financial markets by examining the behaviour of asset prices. We instead identify preferred habitat behaviour directly from whether investors show a preference towards a particular...

Long-horizon interest rates in the major international bond markets fell sharply during 2004 and 2005, at the same time as US policy rates were rising; a phenomenon famously described as a 'conundrum' by Alan Greenspan the Federal Reserve Chairman. But it was arguably the decline in...