We argue that the U.S. personal saving rate's long stability (from the 1960s through the early 1980s), subsequent steady decline (1980s-2007), and recent substantial increase (2008-2011) can all be interpreted using a parsimonious `buffer stock' model of optimal consumption in the presence of...

To what extent does the availability of credit depend on monetary policy? And, does this relationship vary with bank characteristics? Based on a common source of balance sheet data for the four largest economies of the euro area over the period 1999-2011, we uncover three main regularities....

We provide a micro-empirical link between the large literature on credit and house prices and the burgeoning literature on macroprudential policy. Using loan-level data on Irish mortgages originated between 2003 and 2010, we construct a measure of credit availability which varies at the borrower...

We analyze the impact of the countercyclical capital buffers held by banks on the supply of credit to firms and their subsequent performance. Countercyclical 'dynamic' provisioning unrelated to specific loan losses was introduced in Spain in 2000, and modified in 2005 and 2008. The resultant...