This staff report on United Kingdom’s (UK) 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights economic policies and development. The UK economy grew by about ¼ percent in 2012. Net trade reduced growth by 0.6 percentage points of GDP, the biggest drag since 2005, and well above staff projections....

The typical portrait of monetary policy has the banks and the money supply being manipulated through changes in bank reserves. However, with only a small portion of bank deposits now subject to reserve requirements, an alternative explanation of how monetary policy influences banks is needed....

This paper investigates the impact of the new capital requirements introduced under the Basel III framework on bank lending rates and loan growth. Higher capital requirements, by raising banks’ marginal cost of funding, lead to higher lending rates. The data presented in the paper suggest...

This paper reviews monetary transmission mechanisms in low-income countries (LICs) to identify aspects of the channels that may operate differently in LICs relative to advanced and emerging economies. Given the weak institutional frameworks, reduced role of securities markets, imperfect...

How monetary policy affects the economy is a central topic of debate in macroeconomics. The bank lending channel is one approach that emphasises the role of banks. Banks are important because of asymmetric information in the financial market. Banks are assumed to be better at handling...

We argue that China's rising shadow banking was inextricably linked to potential balancesheet risks in the banking system. We substantiate this argument with three didactic findings: (1) commercial banks in general were prone to engage in channeling risky entrusted loans; (2) shadow banking...

China monetary policy, as well as its transmission, is yet to be understood by researchers and policymakers. In the spirit of Taylor (1993, 2000), we develop a tractable framework that approximates practical monetary policy of China. The framework, grounded in relevant institutional elements,...