In mid-September 2008, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, international interbank markets froze and interbank lending beyond very short maturities virtually evaporated. Despite massive central bank support operations and purchases of key assets, many financial markets remained impaired...

Serious fiscal vulnerabilities arising from many years of high government/GDP ratios have created new and complex interactions between public debt management and monetary policy. Although their formal mandates have not changed, recent balance sheet policies of many central banks have tended to...

A long period of high public debt-to-GDP ratios will alter the interactions between fiscal policy, monetary policy and government debt management. But opinions differ on exactly how. Four perspectives were explored in this workshop: historical analysis of policies in financial crises;...

This paper examines the macroeconomic and microeconomic dimensions of systemic risk. The design of practical macroprudential policies to address such risks is complex. Issues to be tackled include: (a) statistics to accurately measure currency and maturity mismatches (which usually lie at the...

Currency mismatches in the major EMEs have been much reduced over the past decade. The development of deeper domestic bond markets has contributed greatly to this. Stresses in international markets after the failure of Lehman severely tested these new markets. There was a flight of foreign...

Large-scale central bank purchases of government bonds have made the long-term interest rate key in the monetary policy debate. How central banks react to bond market movements has varied greatly from one episode to another. Driving the term premium in long-term rates negative may stimulate...

Few financial variables are more fundamental than the 'risk free' real long-term interest rate because it prices the terms of exchange over time. During the past 15 years, it has dropped from a range of 4 to 5% to a range of 0 to 2%. By late 2011, cyclical factors had driven it close to zero....

This paper examines the financial and macroeconomic consequences of changes in central bank balance sheets. Large-scale purchases of bonds tend to drive down long-term interest rates. But developments in global markets, which shape the world long-term rate, exert some powerful constraints....

Monetary policies pursued in response to the financial crisis have shown that changes in central bank balance sheets have major macroeconomic consequences. The New Classical Macroeconomics, which gained increasing sway from the late-1980s, had led to an exclusive focus on the policy rate and a...