We compare the duration and performance of different monetary regimes, especially the contrast between countries those that fix exchange rates and those that target inflation. Inflation targeting is a more durable policy; no country has yet been forced to abandon an inflation target, while many...

Deliberately or not, by providing its stance on the prospects of the economy, rationalizing past decisions or announcing future actions, central banks influence financial markets' expectations of its future policy. In bad times, monetary policy communication inducing an upward revision of the...

We study the bond yield conundrum in a macro-finance framework. Building upon a flexible and non-structural macro-finance model, we test the hypothesis that the bond yield conundrum is connected to various sources of uncertainty in the financial markets. Moreover we explicitly test for the role...

We analyze the impact of non-compliance with a requirement similar to the Basel III Liquidity Coverage Ratio and its impact on bank intermediation applying Regression Discontinuity Designs. Using a unique dataset on Dutch banks, we show that non-compliance with a liquidity requirement causes...

This paper examines the effect of monetary policy on the exchange rate during currency crises. Using data for a number of crisis episodes between 1986 and 2004, we find strong evidence that raising the interest rate: (i) has larger adverse balance sheet effects and is therefore less effective in...

There is a broad consensus in the literature that costs of information processing and acquisition may generate costly disagreements in expectations among economic agents, and that central banks may play a central role in reducing such dispersion in expectations. This paper analyses empirically...

Central bank transparency has become the topic of a lively public and academic debate on monetary policy. Unfortunately, it has been complicated by the fact that transparency is a qualitative concept that is hard to measure. This Paper proposes a comprehensive index for central bank transparency...

Some central banks have a reputation for being secretive. A justification for this behaviour that we find in the literature is that being transparent about operations and beliefs hinders the central bank in achieving the best outcome. In other words, a central bank needs flexibility and...

In this Paper we present a model that combines the second-generation trade-off between costs of maintenance and abandonment with possible balance-sheet problems in the corporate sector. We show how debt levels can move a small economy from a fixed exchange rate to a floating exchange rate...

Should central banks increase their degree of transparency any further? We show that there is likely to be an optimal intermediate degree of central bank transparency. Up to this optimum more transparency is desirable: it improves the quality of private sector inflation forecasts. But beyond the...