We study optimal fiscal policy in a monetary union where monetary policy is decided by an independent central bank. We consider a two-country model with trade in goods and assets, augmented with sticky prices, labor income taxes and stochastic government consumption. It is optimal to finance a...

This paper studies the impact of higher bank capital requirements on corporate lending spreads. We conduct an empirical analysis using granular bank- and loan-level data for Switzerland. Overall, we find a positive relationship between capital ratios, actual and required, and lending spreads....

This paper analyzes housing market boom-bust cycles driven by changes in households' expectations. We explore the role of expectations on productivity and other shocks originating from the housing market, the credit market and the conduct of monetary policy. We find that expectations related to...

This paper models the housing sector, mortgages and endogenous default in a DSGE setting with nominal and real rigidities. We use data for the period 1981-2006 to estimate our model using Bayesian techniques. We analyze how an increase in risk in the mortgage market raises the default rate and...

We consider monetary-fiscal interactions when the monetary authority is more conservative than the fiscal. With both policies discretionary, (1) Nash equilibrium yields lower output and higher price than the ideal points of both authorities, (2) of the two leadership possibilities, fiscal...