In times of financial distress, central banks provide unlimited liquidity to avoid fire sales. In response, banks raise their demand for collateral assets, and the short-term scarcity of collateral securities leads to higher prices, the Fire Buy premium. To avoid collateral scarcity, central...

The European Central Bank's asset purchase programs, while intended to stabilize the economy, may have unintended side effects on financial stability. This paper aims at gauging the effects on financial markets, the banking sector, and lending to non-financial firms. Using a structural vector...

I study whether monetary gold hoarding was the main cause of the Great Depression in a structural VAR analysis. The notion that monetary forces played an important role in bringing about the depression is well established in the narrative literature, but has more recently met some skepticism by...

We study the macroeconomic consequences of the money market tensions associated with the financial crisis in the euro area. In a structural VAR, we identify a liquidity shock rooted in the interbank market and use its impulse response functions to calibrate key parameters of a Smets and Wouters...

The European Council's decisions to implement the De Larosiere recommendations for a reformed approach to micro-level financial supervision and a new European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) are to be welcomed. The ECB's central role in the ESRB is also to be welcomed. However, the limited role...

During the European financial crisis, the European Central Bank implemented a series of unconventional monetary policy measures. We argue that these unconventional monetary policy measures created soft budget constraints for the Eurozone countries by lowering their bond yield spreads. This...