This paper deals with the issue of how the market structure in banking affects the choice of means of payment. In particular, the demand for cash is analysed from this point of view. The analysis is based on a simple spatial transactions model in which the banks’ optimization problem is...

The consequences of electronic trading, payment and settlement have recently become one of the main topics in monetary economics. New innovations in payment and settlement technology are challenging the central bank’s monopoly over the supply of base money, which is generally considered the...

In this paper we test the hypothesis that credit policies are pro-cyclical. Our approach is based on a stochastic frontier analysis of borrower data, as in Chen and Wang (2008). We extend the applicability of the approach, and propose a novel test specification which is informative of many types...

This paper tests for the presence of a credit channel (particularly a bank-lending sub-channel) for monetary policy in the housing market. We argue that the importance of this channel for investment in residential housing is highly dependent on the structural features, and particularly the...

Building on Cecchetti and Li (2005), we show that the bank lending channel affects monetary policy trade-offs only when interest rates affect marginal costs of production (ie when there is a cost channel of monetary policy) in the New Keynesian monetary policy model. In our calibrated model the...

The NSFR regulation reduces banks’ liquidity risks by encouraging the use of deposit funding. Deposit money is created by lending, but the requirement restricts possibilities to grant loans. This contradiction may be destabilising if there is a substantial foreign debt.

The present crisis has revealed that, as expected, much of the safety net for handling failures in the banking system is deficient, particularly for cross-border banks, and the present problems had to be handled by a range of ad hoc measures. The principal new measure that needs to be undertaken...

We study the long standing issue of whether markets can supply banks with sufficient liquidity or whether markets should be complemented with a lender of last resort (LOLR). For this purpose, we develop an extended version of the recent model of Holmström and Tirole (1998) on the supply of...

This paper analyses the determinants of banks’ loan loss allowances for samples of US banks and three non-US samples: a group of 21 countries, Canada and Japan. The model includes fundamental (or non-discretionary) determinants of the allowance such as non-performing loans, and discretionary...

This paper presents a model of the optimal bidding behaviour of a single bank in the context of fixed rate liquidity tenders. Banks’ bidding is shown to depend crucially on the central bank’s liquidity policy as regards tender allotments. The paper also analyses ECB liquidity policy in terms...