As of the reserve maintenance period commencing in November 2010, Hungarian credit institutions will be free to decide whether to apply the previously valid 2% reserve ratio, or to apply a higher mandatory reserve ratio. Credit institutions required to hold reserves may select from reserve...

Small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) of southern euro area economies (e.g. Italy, Spain) pay significantly higher borrowing rates than their peers of the core (e.g. Germany, France) and this divergence is widening. It is argued that severe market failures prevent SMEs in southern euro area...

We analyze the impact of countercyclical capital buffers held by banks on the supply of credit to firms and their subsequent performance. Spain introduced dynamic provisioning unrelated to specific bank loan losses in 2000 and modified its formula parameters in 2005 and 2008. In each case,...

Many economists monitored the developments that led to the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008 with concern. The course and depth of the crisis, however, came as a surprise to many. This paper discusses whether there are structural deficits in economic research which prevent a deeper analytical...

The decades preceding the Great Depression and the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis have close similarities. Both decades were characterized by rapid growth without major contractions, by an increase in liquidity, a lack of inflation, and a generalized decrease in risk premiums. Additional...

We analyze the impact of the countercyclical capital buffers held by banks on the supply of credit to firms and their subsequent performance. Countercyclical ‘dynamic’ provisioning unrelated to specific loan losses was introduced in Spain in 2000, and modified in 2005 and 2008. The resultant...

The present paper contains a brief presentation and analysis, in a historical perspective through the lens of the recent major crises, of the legal framework governing the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as well as current developments and challenges ahead. It is structured in three...

In June 2022, the Federal Reserve started reducing the size of its balance sheet, which had expanded to just under $9 trillion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, whereas banks' reserves at the Federal Reserve have decreased, the investment of money market funds (MMFs) at the Federal...

This paper presents an overview of exposures in the balance sheets of central banks, banks, and other depository institutions during the past decade, with emphasis on asset growth and currency composition. It exploits the IMF's SRF-based monetary data to show: (i) there was a widely observed...

This paper examines the relationship between monetary policy and banks excessive risk-taking and banking crisis. We use a panel of data consisting of 22 Latin American countries, the OECD and South-East Asia, which experienced banking crises between 1990 and 2013. Our empirical results show that...