We examine the dynamics of bank lending to the private sector for countries of theEuro area by applying a Markov switching error correction model. We identify forBelgium, Germany, Ireland and Portugal stable, mean reverting regimes andunstable regimes with no tendency to return to the long term...

Major differences between national financial systems might make a common monetary policy difficult. As within Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom differ most with respect to their financial systems, the present paper addresses its topic under the assumption that the United Kingdom is already...

This paper examines monetary policy in a currency union whose member countries exhibitheterogeneous rates of limited asset markets participation (LAMP). As a result risksharing among member countries is imperfect and the monetary transmission mechanismcan dier across countries. In the limit the...

The economics literature is full of studies of monetary or currency unions ranging from the sterling area before 1914, to the Bretton Woods system later and the euro zone within the European Monetary Union today. A quick search in Econ-Lit returned over 10,000 entries among abstracts and...

The mid-1980s began a period that might, in retrospect, be seen as the golden age of monetary policy. Worldwide inflation rates, which had come down from the high levels reached in the 1970s, were at the lowest level seen in a long time. In the real economy, low and stable inflation went along...