"What should be the role of the ECB in tackling the socio-ecological challenges related to planetary boundaries, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity? A clear answer to this question is still lacking, in spite of the strategy review of 2021. Regretfully, this review has not received...

This paper advances three fundamental propositions regarding money: (1) As R. W. Clower (1965) famously put it, money buys goods and goods buy money, but goods do not buy goods. (2) Money is always debt; it cannot be a commodity from the first proposition because, if it were, that would mean...

Following the Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord of March 3, 1951, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) focused on free reserves - the difference between excess reserves (reserve deposits in excess of reserve requirements) and borrowed reserves - as the touchstone of U.S. monetary policy....

The capital structure of firms is known to be different not only due to firm characteristics but also to the sources of capital. Therefore, there is a need to understand the supply side effects on a firmś capital structure. A small firmś choice of financing sources may be limited by the...

It is commonplace to speak of central bank "independence" as if it were both a reality and a necessity. While the Federal Reserve is subject to the "dual mandate", it has substantial discretion in its interpretation of the vague call for high employment and low inflation. Most important, the...

This study investigate how debt restructurings have evolved over the decades. Debtors and creditors have a long history of engaging an outsider a third partyʺ, such as the IMF to organise and facilitate debt restructurings. As we show, the importance of these third partiesʺ has grown over...

Supervisors sometimes have to manage both the micro- and macro- prudential dimensions of bank stability. These may either conflict or complement each other. We analyze prudential supervision by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). We find evidence of micro-prudential concerns, measured as the...

Contrary to popular belief, the history of central banking begins much earlier than 1800. Many current issues of central bank policy can be traced back to the public giro banks of the 15th century, and have been discussed in numerous essays at least since the 17th century. Are the same debates...

Am 20. Januar 2021 veranstalteten das Institut für bankhistorische Forschung und das Center for Financial Studies eine vielbeachtete Video-Konferenz zum Thema „Die Rolle von Zentralbanken in Krisenzeiten - Lehren aus der Zeit vor 1800“. Anlass war das Erscheinen des Buches von Ulrich...

Do emerging markets need to sacrifice economic sovereignty in order to borrow more cheaply on the international capital markets? To explore this, we exploit a natural experiment following the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 when four Balkan states - Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Serbia - received full...