We examine the properties of house price fluctuations across 18 advanced economies over the past 40 years. We ask two specific questions: First, how synchronized are housing cycles across these countries? Second, what are the main shocks driving movements in global house prices? To address these...

Abstract: Both global and regional economic linkages have strengthened substantially over the past quarter century. We employ a dynamic factor model to analyze the implications of these linkages for the evolution of global and regional business cycles. Our model allows us to assess the roles...

Based on a mean-variance model of bank portfolio selection subject to the value-at-risk constraint, we make predictions on transmission channels through which lower long-term interest rates increase bank loan supply: the portfolio balance channel, the bank balance sheet channel, and the...

On 18-19 June 2004, the BIS held a conference on "Understanding Low Inflation and Deflation". This event brought together central bankers, academics and market practitioners to exchange views on this issue (see the conference programme in this document). This paper was presented at the workshop....