This theoretical paper explores the effects of costly and non-costly collateral on moral hazard, when collateral value may fluctuate. Given that all collateral is costly, stochastic collateral will entail the same positive incentive effects as nonstochastic collateral, provided the variation in...

In this paper we build a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a small open monetary union with optimal monetary and fiscal policy, to study the transmission of country specific shocks and associated exchange rate fluctuations. We show that movements of the monetary union's exchange...

We show how banks' excessive risk-taking, stemming from informational asymmetries in loan markets, can lead to an excessive output loss when a recession starts. Risk-based capital requirements can alleviate the output loss by reducing excessive risk-taking in ‘normal' times. Model simulations...

I find quantitative evidence of a significant effect for credit constraints on durable consumption during a post-deregulation consumer spending spree. The effect varied markedly across age and educational groups. Young households with low levels of education displayed high sensitivity to credit...

This paper demonstrates that subordinated debt (‘subdebt' thereafter) regulation can be an effective mechanism for disciplining banks. Under our proposal, investors buy the subdebt of a bank only if they receive favourable information about the bank, and the bank is subject to a regulatory...

We study the effects on credit allocation and bank stability of introducing a leverage ratio requirement (LRR) on top of risk-based capital requirements, as in Basel III. For the current 3% LRR, both low-risk and high-risk loan rates and volumes remain essentially unchanged, because banks...

This paper examines a class of interest rate rules that respond to public expectations and to lagged variables. Varying levels of commitment correspond to varying degrees of response to lagged output and targeting of the price level. If the response rises (unintentionally) above the optimal...

We examine global dynamics under infinite-horizon learning in New Keynesian models where the interest-rate rule is subject to the zero lower bound. As in Evans, Guse and Honkapohja (2008), the intended steady state is locally but not globally stable. Unstable deflationary paths emerge after...

The welfare cost of random consumption fluctuations is known from De Santis (2007) to be increasing in the level of individual consumption risk in the economy. It is also known from Barillas et al. (2009) to increase if agents in the economy care about robustness to model misspecification. In...

A unique Finnish household-level data from 1994 to 2009 allow us to measure how households' financial expectations are related to the subsequent outcomes. We use the difference between the two to measure forecast errors and household optimism and link the errors to households' borrowing...