Limited access to finance and its high cost have contributed to relatively low levels of private investment and subpar growth in the Kyrgyz Republic. Interest rate spreads have moderated in recent years, but remain high from both a regional and global perspective. At the same time, collateral...

This paper studies how low interest rates weaken the short-run transmission of monetary policy and contract the long-run supply of bank credit. As U.S. bond rates have fallen, the pass-through of monetary shocks to loan and deposit rates has weakened while the spread on U.S. bank loans has...

The interplay between banks and the macroeconomy is of key importance for financial and economic stability. We analyze this link using a factor-augmented vector autoregressive model (FAVAR) which extends a standard VAR for the U.S. macroeconomy. The model includes GDP growth, inflation, the...