How far should capital requirements be raised in order to ensure a strong and resilient banking system without imposing undue costs on the real economy? Capital requirement increases make banks safer and are beneficial in the long run but also entail transition costs because their imposition...

How sizable is the wealth effect on consumption in euro area countries? To address this question, we use newly available harmonized euro area wealth data and the methodology in Carroll et al. (2011b). We find that the marginal propensity to consume out of total wealth averaged across the largest...