Japan has experienced stagnation, deflation, and low interest rates for decades. It is caught in a liquidity trap. This paper examines Japan's liquidity trap in light of the structure and performance of the country's economy since the onset of stagnation. It also analyzes the country's liquidity...

Major central banks remunerate reserves at negative interest rates and it is increasingly likely that they will keep rates negative for many more years. To study the long run implications of negative rates, we construct a dynamic general equilibrium model with commercial banks funding investment...

Bilateral payment flows between banks may provide private information about a borrowing bank's liquidity position. This paper analyses whether private information on the bilateral payment flow of central bank reserves foster peer monitoring or whether the information is used to reduce search...

John Maynard Keynes argued that the central bank influences the long-term interest rate through the effect of its policy rate on the short-term interest rate. However, Keynes's claim was confined to the behavior of the long-term government bond yield. This paper investigates whether Keynes's...

We study overnight interbank interest rates paid by banks in Norway over the period 2006-2009. We observe large variations in interest rates across banks and over time. During the financial crisis, the interest rates are found to be substantially below indicative quotes of interest rates...

If central banks value the ex-post accuracy of their forecasts, previously announced interest rate paths might affect the current policy rate. We explore whether this "forecast adherence" has influenced the monetary policies of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Norges Bank, the two central...

We investigate the effects of central bank liquidity and possible implicit government guarantees against default on Norwegian overnight interbank interest rates. We conduct an econometric study of these interest rates over the period 2006-2009, which includes the sharp fall in interbank trading...

Based on high-frequency data for Norway and Sweden, we investigate to what extent explicit forward guidance from monetary policy makers, by means of publishing the path of expected future policy rates, affects the market yield curve. We summarise movements in the yield curve by two latent...

This paper examines whether relative income and income inequality within reference groups affect household consumption. Using the explanations of consumption behavior based on Dusenberry's relative income hypothesis, we test if household consumption levels in Turkey are affected by the...

Does household leverage matter for worker job search, matching in the labor market, and wages? Theoretically, household leverage can have opposing effects on the labor market through debt-overhang and liquidity constraint channels. To test which channel dominates empirically, we exploit the...