After the switch to a floating exchange rate in 1973, the Swiss National Bank at first adopted annual monetary targets and in the 1990s shifted to a medium-term targeting strategy. In this paper I review the SNB's internal policy analysis, an aspect of Swiss monetary targeting that has received...

Bank-level data is aggregated to test whether changes in bank loan supply affect output. Money demand shocks, money supply shocks and loan supply shocks are used as instruments. Using these shocks as an instrumental variable, we find that shocks to loan supply have large and statistically...

This paper reconsiders the welfare costs of inflation and the welfare gains from financial intermediation in a heterogeneous-agent economy where money is held as a store of value (as in Bewley, 1980). Because of heterogeneous liquidity demand, transitory lump-sum money injections can have...

Embedded options in the worlds physical monies, both coin and paper, are introduced. The option value for base metal coins is presented. The various strategies for redemption by the owner and the prevention of redemption by the issuer (central banks) are discussed. The market values of gold...

The long-run relationship between money and prices in the euro area embedded in traditional money demand models with income and interest rates broke down after 2001. We develop a money demand model where investors hold a diversified portfolio with money, domestic and foreign stocks and long-term...

Affine term structure models (ATSMs) are known to have a trade-off in predicting future Treasury yields and fitting the time-varying volatility of interest rates. This paper empirically studies the role of macroeconomic variables in simultaneously achieving these two goals under affine models....

This paper examines the behavior of all banks in New York State during the Great Contraction and their possible reasons of exit. Combining bank-level balance sheet and failure data for every bank in the state, I find that there are distinct patterns in bank exit. Mergers and consolidations peak...

This paper uses a two-sector model to estimate the relationship between prices, money, and the exchange rate in Madagascar during the period 1982-2004. The estimated model, using quarterly data, finds a stable long-run relationship among monetary aggregates, domestic prices, real income, and...