From the onset of the 2007-2009 crisis, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have aggressively lowered interest rates. Both sets of changes are at odds with an anti-inflationary stance of monetary policy; indeed, as the crisis began in August 2007 inflation expectations were high...

This paper studies the implications of cross-border financial integration for financial stability when banks' loan portfolios adjust endogenously. Banks can be subject to sectoral and aggregate domestic shocks. After integration they can share these risks in a complete interbank market. When...

From the onset of the 2007-2009 crisis, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have aggressively lowered interest rates. Both sets of changes are at odds with an anti-inflationary stance of monetary policy; indeed, as the crisis began in August 2007 inflation expectations were high...

Using a unique dataset of the Euro area and the U.S. bank lending standards, we find that low (monetary policy) short-term interest rates soften standards, for household and corporate loans. This softening – especially for mortgages – is amplified by securitization activity, weak supervision...

This paper studies optimal discretionary monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty about the degree of financial frictions. Changes in the degree of financial frictions are modelled as changes in parameters of a hybrid New-Keynesian model calibrated for the UK, following Bean, Larsen and...

This paper studies optimal discretionary monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty about the degree of financial frictions. Changes in the degree of financial frictions are modelled as changes in parameters of a hybrid New-Keynesian model calibrated for the UK, following Bean, Larsen and...

In this paper, we examine the performance and robustness of optimised interest-rate rules in four models of the euro area which differ considerably in terms of size, degree of aggregation, relevance of forward-looking behavioural elements and adherence to micro-foundations. Our findings are...

I study economies where banks do not fully internalize the social costs of default, which distorts their lending decisions. In all these economies, a common general equilibrium effect leads to aggregate over-investment. As a result, under laissez-faire, crises are too frequent and too costly...

Recent debate has focused on the introduction of a central stabilisation capacity as a completing element of the Economic and Monetary Union. Its main objective would be to contribute cushioning country-specific economic shocks, especially when national fiscal stabilisers are run down. There are...

We study the identification of policy shocks in Bayesian proxy VARs for the case that the instrument consists of sparse qualitative observations indicating the signs of certain shocks. We propose two identification schemes, i.e. linear discriminant analysis and a non-parametric sign concordance...