Under the new Basle Capital Accords, regulation takes the form of a contingency rule prescribing a certain level of bank capital contingent on the bank's risk taking behaviour in choosing its asset portfolio. In a simple dynamic model of banking with binding regulation we show that such Basle II...

This report reviews Thomas J. Sargents essay 'The Conquest of American Inflation' (1999). Sargent searches for a model which can explain postwar US inflation and which may shed light on the dynamic forces which drive this pattern. Following Sargent, the conquest of US inflation is due to a...

In this paper we present a theoretic framework to analyse pricing structures in debit card schemes. Card-holders value debit cards only to the extent that these are accepted by retailers, while retailers in turn benefit from a widespread usage of cards. This points to the two-sided nature of the...

We provide a framework for analysing the choice between optimal and robust rules in the presence of paradigm uncertainty in monetary policy. We thus provide two issues: first, we discuss the conditions of uncertainty that render a robust rule a preferable substitute to optimal rules and second,...

Correlation between the risks of portfolios of different commercial banks leads to too much risk taking from a social planner's perspective. The presence of a regulator omproves this risk-benefit allocation of the financial system. In this paper I show that first-best regulation also leads to...

This article surveys arguments on the lack of innovative capacity of the Dutch economy as presented by Kleinknecht in several papers. The arguments are critically discussed and in addition an alternative way to calculate productivity figures is presented. The authors conclude that the hypothesis...

During World War II nazi-Germany looted 145.000 kg of Dutch monetary gold. Eventually the Netherlands recovered nearby half of the stolen gold.

This research memorandum presents a chronology of (press) information about important measures, events, adresses, quotations an comments by politicians, banking economists and other financial experts closely involved in the European integration process. Central points in the report are the weak...

The Diamond-Dybvig model provides an explanation for: (1) the existence of banks as a risk sharing agreement between depositors against unexpected liquidity needs, (2) bank runs as an act of collective irrationality by rational depositors, and (3) the introduction of deposit insurance as an...

Country members of EMU as well as the United States have improved their fiscal positions during the course of the past decade. This article considers the impact of further government debt and deficit reductions in the EMU area. First the literature on government finance establishing the role of...