An important precondition for mortgage default is that the borrower currently have negative equity, that is, that the mortgage balance be higher than the value of the property. This feature shows how sensitive the percentage of households in negative equity can be to different aspects of the...

Commercial property and property development have historically posed a greater direct risk to financial institutions’ balance sheets than have housing and mortgage markets. A number of factors contribute to this: banks’ commercial property lending is concentrated in loans for...

The crisis enveloping global financial markets since August 2007 was triggered by actual and prospective credit losses on US mortgages. Was the United States just unlucky to have been the first to experience a housing crisis? Or was it inherently more susceptible to one? I examine the limited...

This paper analyses various issues that need to be tackled when promoting financial stability, reviewing the progress made in certain key areas and the remaining challenges. It explores the measurement of systemic risk and of individual institutions’ contribution to it. It discusses aspects of...

The profit share—the share of factor income going to capital—has trended upwards since about the mid 1980s in most developed economies. Not all of the possible explanations for this are consistent with the timing or the cross-country pattern of the data. Our preferred explanation is that...

The crisis enveloping global financial markets since August 2007 was triggered by actual and prospective credit losses on US mortgages. Was the United States just unlucky to have been the first to experience a housing crisis? Or was it inherently more susceptible to one? I examine the limited...

The paper argues that while attempts have been made to reform four of the five key pillars of banks’ operation, (i.e. competition, resolution, supervisory, and auditing and valuation policies), less attention has been paid to the role of bank governance and systemic risk, despite a strong link...

An important precondition for mortgage default is that the borrower currently have negative equity, that is, that the mortgage balance be higher than the value of the property. This feature shows how sensitive the percentage of households in negative equity can be to different aspects of the...

Profits growth has been strong in many developed economies in recent years, and the profit share - the share of factor income going to capital – has been high compared with historical experience. This paper shows that, rather than being a recent phenomenon, profit shares have trended upwards...