Because of secrecy, little is known about the political economy of central bank lending. Utilizing a novel, hand-collected historical daily dataset on loans to commercial banks, we analyze how personal connections matter for lending of last resort, highlighting the importance of governance for...

The current reform of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) lending instruments has transformed the Fund towards an international lender of last resort (ILOLR). Current research discusses various general frameworks for installing an ILOLR. However, it remains unclear how the ILOLR should...

This paper develops a simple model of an international lender of last resort (ILOLR). The world economy consists of many open economies, each with its own banking system and its own central bank which uses its reserves to manage a pegged exchange rate. The fragility of the banking system and the...

We compare the banking crises in 2008-09 and in the Great Depression, and analyse differences in the policy response to the two crises in light of the prevailing international monetary systems. The scale of the 2008-09 banking crisis, as measured by falls in international short-term indebtedness...

We show that a reduction in lender of last resort (LOLR) policy uncertainty positively affects bank lending and propagates to investment and employment. We exploit a unique policy that reduced uncertainty regarding the availability of future LOLR funding for banks as a quasi-natural experiment....

We show that a reduction in lender of last resort (LOLR) policy uncertainty positively affects bank lending and propagates to investment and employment. We exploit a unique policy that reduced uncertainty regarding the availability of future LOLR funding for banks as a quasi-natural experiment....

During the last decades a consensus has emerged that it is impossible to disentangle liquidity shocks from solvency shocks. As a consequence the classical lender of last resort rules, as defined by Thornton and Bagehot, based on lending to solvent illiquid institutions appear ill-suited to this...

This paper develops a model of the lender of last resort. It provides an analytical basis for too big too fail and a rationale for constructive ambiguity. Key results are that if contagion (moral hazard) is the main concern, the Central Bank (CB) will have an excessive (little) incentive to...

One of the main concerns when considering Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is the disintermediating effect on the banking sector in normal times, and even more the risk of a bank run in times of crisis. This paper extends the bank run model of Gertler and Kiyotaki (2015) by analyzing the...

This paper develops a model of the lender of last resort (LOLR). In a simple one-period setting, the Central Bank (CB) should only rescue banks which are above a threshold size, thus providing an analytical basis for "too big too fail". We also provide a rationale for "constructive ambiguity"....