We show, in a monetary exchange economy, that asset prices in a complete markets general equilibrium are a function of the supply of liquidity by the Central Bank, through its effect on default and interest rates. Two agents trade goods and nominal assets to smooth consumption across periods and...

The main conclusions of the paper are the following: - In order to minimize switching costs, the name of the new EU currency should be the D-mark - Differential national requirements for seigniorage revenue provide a weak case for retaining national monetary independence. - From the point of...

The regulation of bank capital in the form of capital adequacy requirements is itself inherently procyclical; it bites in downturns, but fails to restrain in booms. The more risk-sensitive the regulation, the greater the scope for pro-cyclicality to become a problem, particularly in view of the...

This paper contains a general equilibrium model of an economy with incomplete markets (GEI) with money and default. The model is a simplified version of the real world consisting of a non-bank private sector, banks, a central bank, a government and a regulator. The model is used to analyse...

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is proposing to introduce, in 2006, new risk-based requirements for internationally active (and other significant) banks. These will replace the relatively risk-invariant requirements in the current Accord. This article examines the implications of this...

The paper considers alternative exchange rate regimes for the East European accession candidates, both prior to EU accession and following EU accession but prior to EMU membership. We conclude that, from an economic point of view, EMU membership should be as early as possible. There is, however,...

This paper solves for a firm's optimal cash holding policy within a continuous time, contingent claims framework that has been extended to incorporate most of the significant contracting frictions that have been identified in the corporate finance literature. Under the optimal policy the firm...

We study a continuous time model of a levered firm with fixed assets generating a cash flow which fluctuates with business conditions. Since external finance is costly, the firm holds a liquid (cash) reserve to help survive periods of poor business conditions. Holding liquid assets inside the...

Not only in the classic Arrow-Debreu model, but also in many mainstream macro models, an implicit assumption is that all agents honour their obligations, and thus there is no possibility of default. That leads to well-known problems in providing an essential role for either money or for...

Our purpose in this paper is to produce a tractable model which illuminates problems relating to individual bank behaviour and risk-taking, to possible contagious interrelationships between banks, and to the appropriate design of prudential requirements and incentives to limit ‘excessive’...