We use bank retail interest rates as price examples in a study of the determinants of price durations. The extraordinary richness of the data allows us to address some major open issues from the price rigidity literature, such as the functional form of the hazard of changing a price, the effect...

Since 2012 several central banks have introduced a negative interest rate policy (NIRP) aimed at boosting real spending by facilitating an increase in the supply and demand for bank loans. We employ a bank-level dataset comprising 6558 banks from 33 OECD member countries over 2012-2016 and a...

We argue that strong globalization forces have been an important determinant of globalreal interest rates over the last five decades, as they have been key drivers of changes inthe natural real interest rate-i.e. the interest rate consistent with output at its potentialand constant inflation. An...

We estimate risk-free interest rates unaffected by convenience yields on safe assets. We infer them from risky asset prices without relying on any specific model of risk. We obtain a term structure of convenience yields with maturities up to 2.5 years at a minutely frequency. The convenience...

Reducing interest rates below zero may be justified on theoretical grounds while, in practice, it is shown to create a number of distortions and malfunctions in several dimensions of banking and financial markets, which in turn may affect the whole economy. This paper surveys international...

Zimbabwe is one nation that has for many years remained on the top list of economies with high interest rates spread. High interest rates are a signal of financial sector inefficiency. The stability of the financial sector is greatly linked to economic growth and economic stability. The study...

We analyze the effect of negative monetary policy rates on banks, using detailed supervisory information from Switzerland. For identification, we compare changes in the behavior of banks that had different fractions of their central bank reserves exempt from negative rates. More affected banks...

This paper presents econometric analyses on the determination of bank deposit and lending rates using longitudinal Finnish data. Interest rate pass-through is very strong, possibly complete, in the case of lending rates; in the case of deposit rates the pass-through is far from complete, even in...

We identify the effects of negative interest rate policies on bank behavior using difference-in differences identification and data on all Swiss banks. First, we find that going negative can interrupt not only the pass-through from policy to deposit rates, but also that to mortgage rates....

Larger firms (by sales or employment) have higher leverage. This pattern is explained using a model in which firms produce multiple varieties and borrow with the option to default against their future cash ow. A variety can die with a constant probability, implying that bigger firms (those with...