This paper develops a model of the lender of last resort (LOLR). In a simple one-period setting, the Central Bank (CB) should only rescue banks which are above a threshold size, thus providing an analytical basis for ¶too big to fail¶. In a dynamic setting, the CBs optimal LOLR policy is time...

In this paper we assess the performance of the New Keynesian IS Curve for the G7 countries. We find that there is an IS puzzle for both the purely backwardlooking as well as for the forward-looking IS curve. The real interest rate does not have a significantly negative effect on the output gap....

This paper is a copy of the author’s Per Jacobsson Lecture given at the University of Zurich on an occasion hosted by the Bank for International Settlements on Sunday June 27th, 2004. It is reproduced with the kind permission of the Per Jacobsson Foundation.

No abstract is available.

A Monetary Conditions Index (MCI), a weighted average of the short-term real interest rate and the real exchange rate, is a commonly used indicator of aggregate demand conditions. In-sample evidence for the US, the euro area, Japan and the UK suggests that a Financial Conditions Index (FCI),...

A central bank will usually be primarily concerned about three aspects of stability. These are the maintenance of:- (1) domestic price stability, (2) external stability of the value of the currency, and (3) overall systemic stability in the financial system. These three objectives are not, of...

The 1994/95 Hilldale Lecture in Social Studies delivered at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, November 10th, 1994.

China’s financial system has been undergoing major reforms during the last decade, with the aim of establishing a modern commercial banking system and the development of stock market(s). In recent years there have been large capital injections into ailing state-owned banks, and currently...

During recent decades most financial crises were caused by excessive public-sector expansion. The current Asian crisis, however, had its roots in private-sector over-expansion. In this respect it had more in common with the pre-1914 crises. In this paper we compare and contrast these two sets of...