Contingent convertible capital instruments (CoCos) are hybrid capital securities that absorb losses when the capital of the issuing bank falls below a certain level. In this article, we go over the structure of CoCos, trace the evolution of their issuance, and examine their pricing in primary...

A new database for policy actions on housing markets covers 60 economies worldwide from January 1990 (or earliest date available) to June 2012. Policy actions are summarised by type, region, timing and direction. We suggest how the database might help policymakers and researchers to review what...

Policy rates have on aggregate been below the levels implied by the Taylor rule for most of the period since the early 2000s in both advanced and emerging market economies. This finding suggests that monetary policy has probably been systematically accommodative for most of the past decade. The...

We demonstrate that inference from estimated structural News Driven Business Cycle (NDBC) models about the main drivers of fluctuations in macroeconomic variables and asset prices is sensitive to assumptions about the structure of the news shock processes. We show that, when data on asset prices...

Non-financial corporations from emerging market economies (EMEs) have increased their external borrowing significantly through the offshore issuance of debt securities. Having obtained funds abroad, the foreign affiliate of a non-financial corporation could transfer funds to its home country via...

We employ a Threshold Vector Autoregression (TVAR) methodology in order to examine the nonlinear nature of the interactions among credit market conditions, monetary policy and economic activity. We depart from the existing literature on the subject along two dimensions. First, we focus on a...

We employ a threshold vector autoregression (TVAR) methodology in order to examine the nonlinear nature of the interactions among credit market conditions, monetary policy, and economic activity. We depart from the existing literature on the subject along two dimensions. First, we focus on a...

Cross-border bank lending to emerging markets slowed sharply during the taper tantrum. The abruptness of this slowdown varied considerably across both lenders and borrowers. We use newly available data to explain the drivers of this cross-sectional variation. Although the initial tapering shock...

Using the standard principal-agent framework, we show that the existence of executives with different levels of productivity introduces a so-far-unexplored channel through which managerial effort incentives are sustained in a setting in which executives are allowed to trade away their...