We examine the interaction between foreign aid and binding borrowing constraint for a recipient country. We also analyze how these two instruments affect economic growth via non-linear relationships. First of all, we develop a two-country, two-period trade-theoretic model to develop testable...

Mergers of community banks across economic market areas potentially reduce both idiosyncratic and local market risk. Idiosyncratic risk may be reduced because the larger post merger bank has a larger customer base. Negative credit and liquidity shocks from individual customers would have smaller...

I find that high-risk banks pay more for federal funds and are less likely to utilize them as a source of liquidity. The extent of this discipline has risen in recent years, following legislation designed to impose more of the costs of bank failure on uninsured creditors. However, the...

Banks have been required to report many securities and all derivatives at fair values under U.S. GAAP rules for many years. Soon, International Accounting Standards will provide some banks with a “fair-value option” for loans, also. A similar movement toward applying fair values to loans may...

The ability of monetary policy actions to affect the private sector's incentive to invest in fixed capital is hotly debated. Whereas a downward shift in the yield curve increases the present value of expected cash flows and should spur investment, lower short-term interest rates make delay more...

The consumer-finance market for middle and upper-income households in the United States is characterized by a wide range of choices, both in terms of financial-services providers and the specific products and services available.1 Prices generally are determined in competitive markets....

The natural rate of unemployment can be measured as the time-varying steady state of a structural vector autoregression. For post-War U.S. data, the natural rate implied by this approach is more volatile than most previous estimates, with its movements accounting for the bulk of the variation in...

This article examines the condition of the banking industry in the United States, with an emphasis on community banks. In spite of the recent recession, the condition of the banking industry is substantially better than during the recession of 1990-91. There has been an increase in problem loans...

Credit affects the economy via various channels: its price, collateral requirements and the extent of rationing. Would the intensity of monetary transmission be affected by the market structure of the credit industry? Using a spatial competition framework I demonstrate how credit market...