The global financial crisis that began in mid-2007 has renewedconcerns about financial instability and focused attention onthe fundamental role of central banks in preventing andmanaging systemic crises. In response to the turmoil, centralbanks have made extensive use of both new and existing...

In this paper, we assess the effects of changes to the primarycredit facility since August 2007 by performing out-of-samplesimulations based on a model developed by Artuç andDemiralp (2008). Our results are highly consistent with thepredictions of our 2008 study—that is, the revised...

Among the policy responses to the global financial crisis, the international provision of US dollars via central bank swap lines stands out. This paper studies the build-up of stresses on banks' balance sheets that led to this coordinated policy response. Using the BIS international banking...

Liquidity provision through its repo auctions has been one of the main instrumentsof the European Central Bank (ECB) to address the recent tensions infinancial markets since summer 2007. In this paper, we analyse banks’ biddingbehaviour in the ECB’s main refinancing operations (MROs) during...

Recent theoretical work shows that changes in the volatility of inflation and/or unem-ployment affect equilibrium in°ation outcomes when the central banker's loss functionis asymmetric. We show that previous evidence offered in support of the propositionthat the volatility of unemployment helps...

Central banks typically find it difficult to turn off the "political pressure valve". This has important consequences for the types of monetary policies they implement. This paper presents an analysis of how political factors may come into play in the equilibrium determination of inflation. We...

[...]In my view, a goal of price stability requires thatmonetary policy be oriented beyond the horizon of itsimmediate impact on inflation and the economy. Thisimmediate horizon is on the order of two to three years.This orientation properly puts the focus of a forwardlookingpolicy on the time...

[...]The first intellectual development challenging the use ofan activist monetary policy to stimulate output and reduceunemployment is the finding, most forcefully articulatedby Milton Friedman, that the effects of monetary policyhave long and variable lags.1 The uncertainty of the timingand...

[...]Inflation targeting in New Zealand followed legislationthat mandated a Policy Targets Agreement (PTA)between the elected government and the newlyindependent central bank, which resulted in a jointlydecided numerical target for inflation.[...]

[...]Inflation targeting in Canada was not the result oflegislation. However, as in New Zealand, the inflationtarget in Canada is jointly determined and announcedby both the government and the central bank.[...]