One of the most robust stylized facts in macroeconomics is the forecasting power of the term spread for future real activity. The economic rationale for this forecasting power usually appeals to expectations of future interest rates, which affect the slope of the term structure. In this paper,...

Before the era of large central bank balance sheets, banks relied on incoming payments to fund outgoing payments in order to conserve scarce liquidity. Even in the era of large central bank balance sheets, rather than funding payments with abundant reserve balances, we show that outgoing...

Before the era of large central bank balance sheets, banks relied on incoming payments to fund outgoing payments in order to conserve scarce liquidity. Even in the era of large central bank balance sheets, rather than funding payments with abundant reserve balances, we show that outgoing...

The current financial crisis has highlighted the changing role of financial institutions and the growing importance of the shadow banking system, which grew on the back of the securitization of assets and the integration of banking with capital market developments. This trend has been most...

This paper explores the financial stability implications of mark-to-market accounting, in particular its tendency to amplify financial cycles and the "reach for yield". Market prices play a dual role. Not only do they serve as a signal of the underlying fundamentals and the actions taken by...

One aim of post-crisis monetary policy has been to ease credit conditions for borrowers by unlocking bank lending. We find that bank equity is an important determinant of both the bank's funding cost and its lending growth. In a cross-country bank-level study, we find that a 1 percentage point...

Before the era of large central bank balance sheets, banks relied on incoming payments to fund outgoing payments in order to conserve scarce liquidity. Even in the era of large central bank balance sheets, rather than funding payments with abundant reserve balances, we show that outgoing...

The financial crisis of 2007-09 highlighted the changing role of financial institutions and the growing importance of the "shadow banking system," which grew out of the securitization of assets and the integration of banking with capital market developments. This trend was most pronounced in the...

FocusThe paper examines the relationship between monetary policy and market prices through the lens of central bank communication. Central bankers use forward guidance to steer market expectations of future monetary policy moves. At the same time, they rely on market prices to gauge the likely...

In a financial system where balance sheets are continuously marked to market, asset price changes show up immediately in changes in net worth, and elicit responses from financial intermediaries, who adjust the size of their balance sheets. We document evidence that marked to market leverage is...