The impact of loan commitment agreements on the way in which changes in monetary policy affects the economy is examined. In particular, the empirical relevance of quantity credit rationing in the transmission of monetary policy is studied with VAR models. We find evidence of a differential...

Little is known about the characteristics of individual commercial paper issuers, or about the reasons for the countercyclical issuance of commercial paper in the aggregate. To address these issues we construct a new panel dataset linking Moody's data on commercial paper issues with Standard and...

The effects of particular attributes of colleges on the subsequent earnings of individuals who attend are much discussed but rarely studied systematically. Here we seek to compare the earnings patterns of people attending different types of colleges. The classification of colleges used in this...

This paper presents an analysis of the sustainability of current account deficits in transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe. These countries have experienced large current account imbalances in the transition to a market economy. We consider a wide range of macroeconomic factors that...

This paper uses modern asset pricing theory to examine the behavior of short-term nominal interest rates over the past 25 years. The analysis investigates whether variation in the stochastic behavior of output and inflation can explain movements in the rate of interest. Our results reveal that...

This paper examines the impact of the money supply and inflation rate announcements on interest rates. Survey data on expectations of the money supply and consumer and producer price indexes are used to distinguish anticipated and unanticipated components of the announcements. This distinction...

This paper examines the structure of expectations of the weekly money supply announcement in the late 1970s. The data used are from a weekly telephone survey of money market participants. The rationality and structure of expectations are explored with the data organized in three ways:the mean...

Two separate narratives have emerged in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. One interpretation speaks of private financial excess and the key role of the banking system in leveraging and deleveraging the economy. The other emphasizes the public sector balance sheet over the private and...

What risks do asset price bubbles pose for the economy? This paper studies bubbles in housing and equity markets in 17 countries over the past 140 years. History shows that not all bubbles are alike. Some have enormous costs for the economy, while others blow over. We demonstrate that what makes...

This paper unveils a new resource for macroeconomic research: a long-run dataset covering disaggregated bank credit for 17 advanced economies since 1870. The new data show that the share of mortgages on banks' balance sheets doubled in the course of the 20th century, driven by a sharp rise of...