The current financial crisis has highlighted the changing role of financial institutions and the growing importance of the shadow banking system, which grew on the back of the securitization of assets and the integration of banking with capital market developments. This trend has been most...

Specific ideas about the Fisher relation between real and nominal interest rates and more general ideas about the nature of the central bank's duty to support the financial system in times of crisis were important to the Monetarist re-assessment of the causes of the Great Depression and what...

This paper analyses the issue of the dynamics of the TARGET2 system balances during the sovereign debt crisis, when some countries registered a decisive inflow of the central bank liquidity and others showed an outflow. The dynamics in the TARGET2 are here explained as being due to a fall in the...

On 16th November 2009, SUERF, CEPS and the Belgian Financial Forum coorganized a conference "Crisis management at cross-roads" in Brussels. All papers in the present volume are based on contributions at the conference and the SUERF Annual Lecture which followed the event.

This paper seeks to inform about a feature of monetary policy that is largely overlooked, yet occupies a central role in modern monetary and financial systems, namely central bank collateral frameworks. Their importance can be understood by the observation that the money at the core of these...

The issue of the financial crisis draws more and more the specialists’ attention. The monetary policy has a decisive role in monitoring and reducing the inflationary phenomenon as much as possible, since it can become a real danger for an economy during a period of crisis. Inflation is a...

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently became engaged in macro-prudential policies and the micro-prudential supervision of the largest Euro area banks. These new tasks should help complete financial integration, and make the Euro area more resilient to financial instability risks. However, the...

This paper argues that the loose monetary policy of two of the world’s most important financial institutions-the US Federal Reserve Board and the European Central Bank-were ultimately responsible for the outburst of global financial crisis of 2008 - 09. Unusually low interest rates in 2001 -...

The issue of the financial crisis draws more and more the specialists’ attention. The monetary policy has a decisive role in monitoring and reducing the inflationary phenomenon as much as possible, since it can become a real danger for an economy during a period of crisis. Inflation is a...