Banking and finance are inherently pro-cyclical, a condition exacerbated by a combination of Basel II and mark-to-market accounting. But these latter measures have many advantages, so the need is to devise other counter-cyclical macroprudential policies. This fragility was further enhanced by a...

The current financial crisis has raised queries about the adequacy of the present regulatory regime. Whilst the immediate priority may be to plug the obvious holes in the system, there are some long-term generic problems with almost any system of financial regulation. This paper explores one...

Most treatments of financial regulation worry about threats to the banking system and the economy from defaults or credit crunches. This paper argues that the recent crisis points to fire sales through capital markets as another source of financial and economic instability. Accounting for fire...

Although Central Banks have pursued the same objectives throughout their existence, primarily price and financial stability, the interpretation of their role in doing so has varied. We identify three stable epochs, when such interpretations had stabilised, ie: 1.The Victorian era, 1840s to 1914; 2....

Bank Resolution Plans (Living Wills) should help with the resolution of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) in distress. They should be used to clarify and simplify the legal structure and make it commensurate with the functional business lines of the institution. Living Wills...

This paper introduces agent heterogeneity, liquidity, and endogenous default to a DSGE framework. Our model allows for a comprehensive assessment of regulatory and monetary policy, as well as welfare analysis in the different sectors of the economy. Due to liquidity and endogenous default, the...

(The associated paper is significantly revised and new authors have contributed to it) We investigate on three exchange rate series the profitability of signals generated by the breaking of support and resistance identified and supplied by Chartists. Such profitability is assessed, and then...

 

My first-ever essay into quasi-independent research involved an attempt to understand, explain and even possibly extend G.L.S. Shackle’s model of decision-making under uncertainty.  Undergraduates at Cambridge who had done well in Part 1 of the Economics Tripos were encouraged to participate...

The relative liquidity of financial assets is significantly influenced by the Central Bank’s willingness to buy such assets, or to accept them as collateral, in the course of providing additional cash to banks.  Those assets which the Central Bank will deal in for such purposes become more...