The European Central Bank (ECB) is a special, even unique central bank. It is a central bank without a treasury by its side or a state behind it, just as the euro, Europe's common currency that the ECB is tasked with guarding, is a 'denationalised' currency. The euro area is a rare exception to...

This paper analyzes the contagion effects associated with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and identifies bank-specific vulnerabilities contributing to the subsequent declines in banks' stock returns. We find that uninsured deposits, unrealized losses in held-to-maturity securities, bank...

The paper evaluates the performance of three popular monetary policy rules when the central bank is learning aboutthe parameter values of a simple New Keynesian model. The three policies are: (1) the optimal non-inertial rule; (2)the optimal history-dependent rule; (3) the optimal price-level...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of delegation in solving the time inconsistency problem of monetary policy using a microfounded general equilibrium model where delegation and reappointment are explicitly included into the government's strategy. The method of Chari and Kehoe (1990) is...

This paper examines the emerging challenges to the art of monetary policymaking using the case study of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in light of developments in the Indian economy during the last decade (2003-04 to 2013-14). The paper uses Hyman P. Minsky's financial instability hypothesis as...

This paper estimates the path of inflation persistence in the United States over the last 50 years and draws implications about the evolution of the Federal Reserve's monetary-policy preferences. Standard models of central bank optimization predict that the central bank's preference for output...

This paper examines the link between banking structure and financial fragility across Europe during the 1920s and 1930s using a new database. Monthly and annual data are analyzed to show that countries with universal banking were more likely to experience crises. Furthermore, those countries...

Using count data on the number of bank failures in US states during the 1960 to 2006 period, this paper endeavors to establish how far sources of economic risk (recessions, high interest rates, inflation) or differences in solvency and branching regulation can explain some of the fragility in...

On 5 December 1925, the ‘Portuguese Bank Note Bubble’ burst. The Lisbon daily newspaper, O Século (The Century), revealed the swindle in the headline ‘O Pais em Crise’ (The Country in Crisis). The article describes how twenty-eight year old white-collar worker, Artur Virgilio Alves...

Survey data from Bulgaria show that people who had experienced a loss during a banking crisisare significantly more likely to expect a new crisis. This result holds despite 12 years betweenthe earlier crisis and the survey, and the dramatically improved performance of the financialsector and the...