Macroprudential policy improves economic outcomes by reducing the likelihood and severity of financial crises. Yet it is pertinent to ask, are there unintended long run consequences to the introduction of a macroprudential policy regime, and are these consequences conditional on the a priori...

We extend the Central Bank of Malta's core DSGE model - MEDSEA - with housing and financial frictions to capture the important theoretical links betweeen house prices, credit and consumption. The model features a rich set of features that are inherent to small open economies in a monetary union....

In this paper we propose a SVAR identification strategy to disentangle two housing demand shocks and their ensuing effect on consumption. This builds on the literature studying the role of the collateral and housing wealth effects on household behaviour. A mix of zero and sign restrictions...

We use household-level data from the Household Budgetary Survey to study the saving patterns of Maltese households. We first establish a set of key observations from the data, showing that the likelihood of saving rises with income, age and education. We then estimate a Logit model of the...

This paper develops a two-block Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) to estimate the spillover of external shocks to the Maltese economy. The model focuses on five broad macroeconomic shocks hitting the euro area; an aggregate demand shock, two aggregate supply shocks which respectively proxy...

This paper uses Bayesian techniques and Maltese data over the period 2001-2019 to estimate the parameters of MEDSEA-FIN, one of the Central Bank of Malta's DSGE models. The model captures linkages between the housing sector, banks and the rest of the economy via a borrowing collateral...

This study analyses the determinants of the aggregate household saving rate in Malta; an important macroeconomic variable which in standard short-term analysis is considered as a 'residual'. The aggregate household saving rate, fluctuated significantly over the past thirteen years, rising from...

This paper estimates a Phillips curve for Malta using data since the 1960s and presents evidence that the relationship has flattened over time, implying that the link between inflation and economic activity has weakened. Further analysis finds that this phenomenon was driven by downward price...

Macroprudential policy is pre-emptive, aimed at preventing crises. Empirical evidence hints at the existence of asymmetric policy in booms and recessions. This paper uses a New Keynesian model with a financial friction on mortgage borrowing and collateral to show what implications this asymmetry...

This paper presents a credit gap for Malta derived from a semi-structural multivariate filter. This modelling approach has several advantages over univariate approaches typically used, for example to construct the Basel gap. The multivariate filtering of observed data into trends and cycles is...