A number of researchers have recently argued that the growth of the shadow banking system in the years preceding the recent U.S. financial crisis was driven by rising demand for "money-like" claims — short-term, safe instruments (STSI) — from institutional investors and nonfinancial firms....

A number of researchers have recently argued that the growth of the shadow banking system in the years preceding the recent U.S. financial crisis was driven by rising demand for \"money-like\" claims--short-term, safe instruments (STSI)--from institutional investors and nonfinancial firms. These...

This paper describes the construction of a financial stress index. This stress index differs from other indexes in that it incorporates the co-movement and volatility of financial series as well as the levels of the series. Our index also uses past experience more than others to guide the...

How monetary policy should be set optimally when the structure of the economy exhibits inflation persistence is an important question for policy makers. This paper provides an overview of the implications of inflation persistence for the design of monetary policy.

This paper studies optimal discretionary policy with parameter uncertainty about inflation inertia. Optimal policy rules and impulse responses are presented within a hybrid New-Keynesian model estimated for the euro area by Smets (2003). We find that it may be optimal for policy to respond more...

This paper studies optimal discretionary monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty about the degree of financial frictions. Changes in the degree of financial frictions are modelled as changes in parameters of a hybrid New-Keynesian model calibrated for the UK, following Bean, Larsen and...