This paper investigates whether central banks can attenuate excessive mispricing in stocks as suggested by the proponents of a \leaning against the wind" (LATW) monetary policy. For this, we decompose stock prices into a fundamental component, a risk premium, and a mispricing component. We argue...

We provide empirical evidence of the causal effects of changes in financial intermediaries' net worth on the aggregate economy. Our strategy identifies financial shocks as high-frequency changes in the market value of intermediaries' net worth in a narrow window around their earnings...

This paper investigates the efficiency of various monetary policy instruments to stabilize asset prices in a liquidity crisis. We propose a macro-finance model featuring both traditional and shadow banks subject to funding risk. When banks are well capitalized, they have access to money markets...

The equity premium puzzle is one of the most important phenomena in finance. Related to behavioral finance, we use the concept of Myopic Loss Aversion (MLA) to explain the puzzle in developed and emerging markets. Empirically, we support the robustness of the positive equity premium across the...

This paper examines financial regulation and distortionary taxes in a heterogeneous-agents economy with pecuniary externalities induced by a collateral constraint. Limiting the loan-to-value ratio benefits only few unconstrained borrowers and reduces ex-ante social welfare. A Pigouvianstyle...

This paper explains the emergence of liquidity traps in the aftermath of large-scale financial crises, as happened in the US 1930s, Japan 1990s and recently in the US and Europe. The paper introduces a new balance sheet channel that links equity capital to the risk-free interest rate. When...

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.

Despite a large and growing theoretical literature on flights to safety, there does not appear to exist an empirical characterization of flight-to-safety (FTS) episodes. Using only data on bond and stock returns, we identify and characterize flight to safety episodes for 23 countries. On...

Systemic risk arises when shocks lead to states where a disruption in financial intermediation adversely affects the economy and feeds back into further disrupting financial intermediation. We present a macroeconomic model with a financial intermediary sector subject to an equity capital...