Governors and senior officials representing some two dozen central banks from Africa and other regions of the world met at the BIS in May 2011 to discuss the monetary policy and financial stability issues facing Africa after the global financial crisis. This volume brings together the background...

The characteristics that distinguish most developing countries, compared to large industrialized countries, include: greater exposure to supply shocks in general and trade volatility in particular, procyclicality of both domestic fiscal policy and international finance, lower credibility with...

To end a financial crisis, the central bank is to lend freely, against good collateral, at a high rate, according to Bagehot's Rule. We argue that in theory and in practice there is a missing ingredient to Bagehot's Rule: secrecy. Re-creating confidence requires that the central bank lend in...

We explore the role of ‘dollar shortage' shocks and central bank swap lines in a two-country New Keynesian model with financial frictions. Domestic banks issue both domestic and foreign currency debt and lend in domestic currency. Foreign currency-specific funding shocks, which are amplified...

It is well known that a tightening or easing of the United States' monetary policy affects financial markets in emerging economies. This paper argues that uncertainty about future monetary policy is a separate transmission channel. We focus on the taper tantrum episode in 2013, a period with an...

The Federal Reserve System or the Fed is one of the most prestigious institutions in the world. Founded by the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, the Fed has the responsibility of setting the monetary policy of the U.S. The Fed’s actions affect the money supply in the U.S. market which has a direct...

The U.S. Federal Reserve has committed hundreds of billions of dollars in unprecedented lending activities and purchases of mortgage-backed securities based upon its authority under the Federal Reserve Act, and particularly upon its interpretation of Section 13(3), a formerly untested and unused...

We examine how borrowing constraints affect monetary transmission and the trade-off of a welfare maximizing central bank. We develop a sticky price model where money serves as the means of payment and ex-ante identical agents borrow/lend among each other. The credit market is distorted as...

In times of financial distress, central banks provide unlimited liquidity to avoid fire sales. In response, banks raise their demand for collateral assets, and the short-term scarcity of collateral securities leads to higher prices, the Fire Buy premium. To avoid collateral scarcity, central...

Motivated by the tension first revealed during the global financial crisis between thedomestic and international financial stability obligations of central bank reserve managers,this paper offers some reflections along four main lines. First, the paper highlights howofficial reserve management...