This paper analyses the determinants of banks loan loss allowances for samples of US banks and three non-US samples: a group of 21 countries, Canada and Japan.The model includes fundamental (or non-discretionary) determinants of the allowance such as non-performing loans, and discretionary...

In the European Economic Area the home country supervises the activities of its banks, wherever they are operating via branches or across borders, while the host country handles the stability of its financial system and problems stemming from failure or distress.We address two main problems...

The aim of the present analysis is to shed light on the question whether Central Banks should publish their macroeconomic forecasts, and what could possibly be gained in monetary policy if they did so.We show that disclosing the Central Bank's assessment of the prevailing inflationary pressures...

This paper provides an exposition of the nature, means of estimation and uses of Financial Conditions Indexes (FCIs) and their relationship to the more common Monetary Conditions Indexes (MCIs) that are used by market analysts, international organisations and central banks.Using panel datasets...

We use the ten years of experience in inflation-targeting in New Zealand since 1989 to test whether monetary policy appears to conform to the simple rules that have been recommended for it in the literature.Of the inflation targeting central banks, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has both the...

Using quarterly data for the period since 1987 this paper explores, in the context of a small model of the EU economy, the degree to which monetary policy has been asymmetric.It shows in particular that monetary policy has been much more responsive to threats that inflation would lie outside the...