The phrase “liquidity effect” was introduced by Milton Friedman (1969) to describe the first of three effects on interest rates caused by an exogenous change in the money supply. The lack of empirical support for the liquidity effect using monthly and quarterly data using various monetary...

Economic theory predicts that the consumption path of unconstrained homeowners responds to the interest rate, while the consumption path of credit constrained homeowners is determined by the size and timing of payments (mortgage maturity). We exploit the rapid expansion of mortgage markets...

Using a panel of OECD countries from 1960 to 2002, this paper shows that financial markets value fiscal discipline. Interest rates, particularly those of long-term government bonds, decrease when countries' fiscal position improves and increase around periods of budget deteriorations. Stock...

This paper assesses the possible contemporaneous relationship between stock index prices, earnings and long-term government bond yields for a large number of countries and over a time period that spans several decades. In a cointegration framework, our analysis looks at three hypotheses. First,...

Despite the remarkable economic and financial convergence over the last ten years in the euro area, mortgage interest rates still differ across countries. This note presents some stylised facts on the heterogeneity of mortgage interest rates across euro area countries on the basis of the...

Despite substantial differences in monetary policy and communication strategies, many central banks share the practice of purdah, a self-imposed guideline of abstaining from communication around policy meetings or other important events. This practice is remarkable, as it seems to contradict the...

This paper focuses on risk premiums paid by central governments in Europe and sub-national governments in Germany, Spain, and Canada. With regard to the European governments, we are interested in how these premiums were affected by the introduction of the euro. Using data for bond yield spreads...

This paper uses index number theory to disentangle changes in aggregate retail interest rates due to changes in individual component rates (“interest rate effect”) from those caused by changes in the weights of each component (“weight effect”), on the basis of the “difference” index...