The paper looks at the challenges of conducting monetary policy in a context of high dollarization of the banking system and weak institutions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The empirical analysis confirms the limited effectiveness of the Central Bank of Congo in controlling inflation,...

The North Atlantic financial crisis of 2008-2009 has spurred renewed interest in reforming the international monetary system, which has been malfunctioning in many aspects. Large and volatile capital flows have promoted greater volatility in financial markets, leading to recurrent financial...

In this paper, we study the optimal mix of monetary and macroprudential policies in an estimated two-country model of the euro area. The model includes real, nominal and financial frictions, and hence both monetary and macroprudential policy can play a role. Wefind that the introduction of a...

The ECB has taken a range of actions to address bank funding problems, eliminate excessive risk in sovereign markets, and safeguard monetary transmission. But euro area financial markets have remained fragmented, driving retail interest rates in stressed markets far above those in the core. This...

Many central banks in low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are modernising their monetary policy frameworks. Standard statistical procedures have had limited success in identifying the channels of monetary transmission in such countries. Here we take a narrative approach, following Romer...

Empirical evidence is mounting that, in advanced economies, changes in monetary policy have a more benign impact on the economy - given better anchored inflation expectations and inflation being less responsive to variation in unemployment - compared to the past. We examine another aspect that...

We examine the effects of unconventional monetary policy (UMP) events in the United States on asset price risk using risk-neutral density functions estimated from options prices. Based on an event study including a key exchange rate, an equity index, and five commodities, we find that “tail...

Financial lubrication in markets is indifferent to margin posting via money or collateral; the relative price(s) of money and collateral matter. Some central banks are now a major player in the collateral markets. Analogous to a coiled spring, the larger the quantitative easing(QE) efforts, the...

This paper surveys institutional arrangements for macroprudential policy in Asia. Central banks in Asia typically have a financial stability mandate, and play a key role in the macroprudential framework. Smaller and more open economies with prudential regulation inside the central bank tend to...

This paper evaluates the strength of the balance sheet channel in the U.S. monetary policy transmission mechanism over the past three decades. Using a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression model on an expanded data set, including sectoral balance sheet variables, we show that the balance sheets...