The ongoing global financial crisis is rooted in a combination of factors common to previous financial crises and some new factors. The crisis has brought to light a number of deficiencies in financial regulation and architecture, particularly in the treatment of systemically important financial...

This paper studies how U.S. monetary policy affects global stock prices. We find that global stock prices respond strongly to changes in U.S. interest rate policy, with stock prices increasing (decreasing) following unexpected monetary loosening (tightening). This impact is more pronounced for...

We provide a theoretical foundation for the claim that prolonged periods of easy monetary conditions increase bank risk taking. The net effect of a monetary policy change on bank monitoring (an inverse measure of risk taking) depends on the balance of three forces: interest rate pass-through,...

We track direct public interventions and public holdings in 1,114 financial institutions over the period 2007-17 in 37 countries based on publicly available information. We use aggregate official data to validate this new dataset and estimate the fiscal impact of interventions, including the...

The financial crisis showed, once again, that neglecting real estate booms can have disastrous consequences. In this paper, we spell out the circumstances under which a more active policy agenda on this front would be justified. Then, we offer tentative insights on the pros and cons as well as...

The move from individual decision making to committee decision making is widely seen as a major evolution in contemporary central banking. This paper reviews the relevant economics and social psychology literatures with a view to providing some insights into the question of optimal monetary...

This paper analyzes the determinants of daily changes in Jordan''s interbank market overnight rate. It not only quantifies the classic liquidity effect, but also uncovers a liquidity distribution effect on both sides of the market, and shows that their magnitude is a decreasing and convex...

We study whether capital flows affect the degree of credit crunch faced by a country''s manufacturing firms during the 2007-09 crisis. Examining 3823 firms in 24 emerging countries, we find that the decline in stock prices was more severe for firms that are intrinsically more dependent on...

China’s high corporate savings rate is commonly claimed to be a key driver for the country’s large current account surplus. The mainstream explanation for high corporate savings is a combination of windfall profits in state-owned firms, especially in resource sectors, and mis-governance of...