In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the moments of the yield curve (or alternatively, the term spread) as a predictor of future economic activity, defined as either recessions, or industrial production growth. In this paper, we re-examine the evidence for this predictor for the...

We investigate the time varying dynamics of the linkages between sovereign and bank default risks over the period 2006-2015, using the credit default swap (CDS) spreads of the bonds of major international banks and of sovereign issuers as indicators of risk within four major European countries....

On 5-6 September 2012 SUERF held its 30th Colloquium "States, Banks, and the Financing of the Economy" at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the Colloquium. All the chapters in this publication discuss from different...

Die durch die große Finanzkrise induzierten hohen Schuldenquoten zwingen die Staaten zu Maßnahmen des Schuldenabbaus. Financial Repression bietet dafür Möglichkeiten. Sie entsteht, wenn staatliche Instanzen den Finanzmärkten Maßnahmen oktroyieren und manifestiert sich in erster Linie in...

We discuss the pros of adopting government-issued digital currencies as well as a supranational digital iCurrency. One such pro is to get rid of paper money (and coinage), a ubiquitous medium for spreading germs, as highlighted by the recent coronavirus outbreak. We set forth three policy...

We discuss the idea of a purely algorithmic universal world iCurrency set forth in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541" https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542541 and expanded in: "https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330" https://ssrn.com/abstract=3059330 in light of recent developments, including Libra. Is...

Over millennia, mankind has used hard cash in various forms ranging from shells to gold coins and paper. More recently, cash has become unpopular in political circles, as it effectively restricts states’ power to tax (explicitly or via negative interest rates) or to survey and potentially...

This paper analyses different operational central bank policies and their impact on the behaviour of the money market interest rate. The model combines profit maximising behaviour by commercial banks with the central bank supplying the liquidity that keeps the market rate on target. It seems...

On 11 March 2015, SUERF jointly organised a conference with the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and the Austrian Society for Bank Research (Bankwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft - BWG). The present SUERF Study 2015/2 includes a selection of papers based on the authors' contributions to the Vienna...

We estimate that the supply of sovereign safe assets is a major driver of neutral interest rates--real rates consistent with both economic activity and inflation at their trends. We find this result using an empirical cross-country model with many economic drivers for the neutral rates of 11...