A major criticism of standard specifications of price adjustment in models for monetary policy analysis is that they violate the natural rate hypothesis by allowing output to differ from potential in steady state. In this paper we estimate a dynamic optimizing business cycle model whose...

The aim of this paper is to isolate the long run movements on equilibrium interest rate (or natural rate of interest) and potential growth. This estimations has been compute for US and Germany using a methodology developed by Laubach and Williams that is based on a Kalman Filter estimation of...

This paper studies the existence and the scale of education externalities in the unemployment durations suffered by workers in the UK. First, we develop a theoretical model. Using a matching framework we show that a rise in the average level of education of a labour market will affect...

The UK's Financial Services Authority sets individual capital requirements that reflect its assessment of risks and that are greater than the 8% minimum required by Basel. This approach is similar to the supervisory review in Pillar II proposed in the new Basel Accord. Using regulatory returns...

This paper investigates the factors that determine the use of collateral in time series and cross-section data on the population of banks' loans to Spanish firms every year from 1984 to 2002 (over two million loans). Using the record of actual loan defaults of borrowers as a measure of credit...