On September 3-4, 2009 SUERF and Utrecht University School of Economicsorganized the Colloquium "The Quest for Stability" in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the Colloquium.

We draw on a comprehensive set of data of all registered firms in Thailand to examine whether firm size affects the relation between leverage and operating performance during the global financial crisis of 2007–2009. From a data set of 496,430 firm-year observations of a sample of 170,013...

The effects of the 2008/2009 financial crisis went largely among financial markets and hit the real economy, generating one of the greatest global economic shocks. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether inflation targeting has made a difference during this crisis. First, we put...

This paper examines five possible explanations for the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, using data for the United States and the eurozone. Of these five hypotheses, four are not supported by the data, while the fifth appears reasonable.

In late 2008, deteriorating economic conditions led the Federal Reserve to lower the federal funds rate to near zero and inject massive liquidity into the financial system through novel facilities. The combination of conventional and unconventional measures complicates the challenging task of...

After presenting a brief overview of the recent financial crisis and the European debt crisis that followed in its wake, this paper goes on discuss monetary policy in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Euro bloc prior to and during the course of the two crises. The paper presents...

This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic and monetary news on U.S. Government bond rate level and volatility. Specifically, it checks if these news affect differently interest rate level and volatility during "stable" and "unstable" periods. "Unstable" periods correspond to the...

The aim of the paper is to understand how the financial crisis has affected the interest rate pass-through (PT) in the Eurozone between market rates and bank interest rates. We have applied a SUR-ECM model. This methodology allows testing for the homogeneity of the PT of the euro area countries....

On September 3-4, 2009 SUERF and Utrecht University School of Economicsorganized the Colloquium "The Quest for Stability" in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the Colloquium.

This paper analyzes the causes and implications of recent financial crises. Financial crises in general lead to changes in both theory and practice of economics. The paper takes an historical overview. The global consensus of economic theory during the 20th century is discussed. The paper...