Mercantilist theories and policies in early capitalism have been criticized for confusing microeconomic and macroeconomic sources of wealth, for misunderstanding the benefits of free trade, and for overrating the role of money. This paper aims to reconstruct the rationality of mercantilism as an...

The growth and deepening of financial markets entailed the expectation that the bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission would lose its importance. The paper explains why, on the contrary, the banking sector has become a major locus of origination and amplification of macro-financial...

Die Schuldenkrise in der EWU ist entstanden, weil sich die Staaten in „fremder Währung“ verschulden müssen. Diese Konstellation war als Ordnungsrahmen bei der Gründung der Währungsunion vorgesehen, führte aber dazu, dass sich die Staaten von den internationalen Finanzmärkten abhängig...

Old OCA theory recommends to unite homogenous countries so that their macroeconomic interrelations do not pose severe stabilisation problems. New OCA theory rightly criticizes the 1960s flavour of the old approach and believes in the endogenous emergence of an OCA if countries use the facilities...

A hybrid standard macro model is supplemented by an explicit analysis of bank lending, based on a five-position aggregative balance sheet. In the model's two versions credit supply is based on a leverage targeting rule or on simple optimisation, taking into account lending risks and funding...

Economists in the public are accused of propagating highly professional, but unrealistic theories that mislead market agents and policy makers to place too much confidence in rational behaviour and market equilibrium. The paper analyses to what extent the US banking crisis and the euro crisis...

Low inflation on goods markets provides no reliable precondition for asset-market stability; it might even promote the emergence of bubbles because interest rates and risk premia appear to be low. A further factor driving asset demand is easy availability of credit, which in turn roots in the...

Liquidity preference theory had a hard time to defeat the loanable funds approach because Keynes himself failed to elucidate the financing of investment in the "General Theory". Liquidity preference is a key element in the credit supply decision of the banking system. Liquidity premium is an...