Economic cycles are the key credit portfolio risk driver and they are autocorrelated over time. We then show that it is economically meaningful to define risk for credit portfolios in a multi period setup. Since one period expected shortfall fails to measure risk adequately in a multi period...

Bond yield and retail interest rate spreads are presumed to lead real activity on the basis of financial accelerator mechanisms, markup cyclicality or simply because they are forward-looking. Empirical results for Austria show that retail rate spreads outperform many other indicators in this...

We study the interest rate spread of the Argentine financial system during the last eighteen years. We analyze Granger causality of selected variables, and estimate econometric models that relate spread to macroeconomic and microeconomic factors. Resuls indicate that output growth and...

This paper examines whether bank ownership (public versus private, domestic versus foreign) is correlated with bank lending behavior over the business cycle. The paper finds that state-owned banks may play a useful credit-smoothing role because their lending is less responsive to macroeconomic...

We use a quantitative equilibrium model with houses, collateralized debt and foreign borrowing to study the impact of global imbalances on the U.S. economy in the 2000s. Our results suggest that the dynamics of foreign capital flows account for between one fourth and one third of the increase in...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the market for unsecured credit literally dried out and collateral secured debt became the most widely used concept to coinsure against liquidity shocks. However, since financial assets are usually unproductive, the question comes up why...

Aggregate housing demand shocks are an important source of house price fluctuations in the standard macroeconomic models, and through the collateral channel, they drive macroeconomic fluctuations. These reduced-form shocks, however, fail to generate a highly volatile price-to-rent ratio that...

This paper surveys the literature on the linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes. It focuses on three major questions. First, what are the basic theoretical linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes? Second, what is the empirical evidence supporting these...

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the macroeconomic implications of financial imperfections. It focuses on two major channels through which financial imperfections can affect macroeconomic outcomes. The first channel, which operates through the demand side of finance...

The last global crisis brought the monetary policy risk-taking channel to the fore, arguing that lingering low interest rates might affect not only the quantity, but the quality of credit extended as well. In line with this debate, this paper is the first effort to empirically investigate the...