Exponential smooth transition autoregressive (ESTAR) models are widely used in the international finance literature, particularly for the modelling of real exchange rates. We show that the exponential function is ill-suited as a regime weighting function because of two undesirable properties....

We introduce time-varying systemic risk (à la He and Krishnamurthy, 2014) in an otherwise standard New-Keynesian model to study whether simple leaning-against-the-wind interest rate rules can reduce systemic risk and improve welfare. We find that while financial sector leverage contains...