We empirically test whether there is a causal link between the real interest rate and the natural rate of interest, which could be a harbinger of secular stagnation if the real rate declines. Outcomes of VAR models for Japan, Germany and the US show that a fall in the real rate indeed affects...

This paper develops a Financial Stress Index (FSI) for 28 OECD countries and examines its relationship to crises using a novel database for financial crises. A stress index measures the current state of stress in the financial system and summarizes it in a single statistic. Our results suggest...

This paper uses a large dataset, covering more than 70% of the Dutch housing market, to analyze the relationship between market thinness, price setting behavior and time to sell. Our findings confirm the typical result that overpricing increases the time on market. In addition, we find evidence...

This paper presents the results of a survey among Dutch firms on price setting behaviour in the Netherlands. It aims to identify how sticky prices are, which prices are sticky and why they are sticky. It is part of the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network (IPN). The most distinctive feature...

In their seminal paper, Morris and Shin (2002a) argued that increasing the precision of public information is not always bene.cial to social welfare. Svensson (2005) however has disputed this by saying that although feasible, the conditions for which this was true, were not at all that likely....

Macro stress-testing has become an important tool to assess financial stability. This paper describes a tool kit for scenario analysis and macro stress-testing. It is based on a model which maps multivariate scenarios to banks' credit and interest rate risks by deterministic and stochastic...

Some central banks have a reputation for being secretive. A justification for that behavior thatwe find in the literature is that being transparent about its operations and beliefs hinders the central bank in achieving the best outcome. In other words, a central bank needs flexibility and...

We analyse the relationship between tail risk and crisis measures by governments and the central bank. Using an adjusted Merton model in a game theoretical set-up, the analysis shows that the participation constraint for interventions by the central bank and the governments is less binding if...

Do tightenings of bank lending standards permanently reduce bank lending? We construct a measure of a bank's level of lending standards using micro-data from the sample of banks participating in the Eurosystem Bank Lending Survey in The Netherlands and show that this level measure affects...

We analyze the effect of the business cycle on price dispersion in Europe . Five decades of price level dispersion data for Europe enable us to distinguish short-term influences from long-term influences like market integration. We find that at the business cycle frequency, price dispersion...