If markup ratios fluctuate widely, so does output volume and investment. This magnifies the business cycle and increases uncertainty about future economic conditions. This paper investigates the implication for monetary policy by analyzing markup ratios. The main conclusions are (1) as a result...

Repurchase agreement (repo) transactions are widely used as a risk-free means of borrowing or lending funds and securities. Repo transactions can be categorized into (1) general collateral (GC) repos that borrow or lend funds, and (2) special collateral (SC) repos that borrow or lend specific...

This paper explores banks' entry decisions into a duopolistic loan market to shed light on the prolonged slump in the Japanese loan market in the 1990s. The game-theoretic real options approach is employed to analyze the effects of uncertainty on lending decisions. Special emphasis is given to...

This article provides an empirical investigation into the validity of the production-based capital asset-pricing model (P-CAPM) in the Japanese asset markets during the period 1980-97. Several methodologies are used to test the P-CAPM, which include the generalized method of moments (GMM) test...

This article investigates the flexibility hypothesis of stock repurchases relative to dividends using the panel data of 577 Japanese firms. The estimation result of the partial adjustment model shows that the coefficient of adjustment speed towards the target payouts is higher for total payouts...

This paper investigates the relative role of price discovery between two long-term swap contracts that exchange U.S. dollars for Japanese yen - the cross-currency basis swap and the foreign exchange (FX) swap - using structural state space models. Our main findings are that: (i) the currency...

The Lehman Brothers failure stressed global interbank and foreign exchange markets because it led to a run on money market funds, the largest suppliers of dollar funding to non-US banks. Policy stopped the run and replaced private with public funding.

On 18-19 June 2004, the BIS held a conference on "Understanding Low Inflation and Deflation". This event brought together central bankers, academics and market practitioners to exchange views on this issue (see the conference programme in this document). This paper was presented at the workshop....

This paper investigates the determinants and dynamics of subordinated credit spreads for Japanese mega-banks using the bond and credit default swap (CDS) spreads. The main findings are as follows. Subordinated bond and CDS spreads are cointegrated in most cases, and the CDS spread plays a more...

We analyze the factors that influence the survival probability of hedge funds reported in the Lipper TASS database. Particular emphasis is placed on (1) non-normality of returns and assets under management (AUM), (2) short-term capital outflows, and (3) liquidity constraints associated with a...