One of the most important recent innovations in financial markets has been the development of credit derivative products that allow banks to more actively manage their credit portfolios than ever before.We analyse the effect that access to these markets has had on the lending behaviour of a...

This paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of commodity export price shocks on growth in commodity-dependent countries. Using a large crosscountry dataset, we find that negative shocks matter for short-term growth, while the ex ante risk of shocks does not seem to...

When comparing the transparency of the ECB now with the transparency of the ECB about one decade ago, we notice that transparency still can be improved in a few ways. In particular the disclosure related to the ways decisions are reached and the disclosure on its policy (what is the envisioned...

We argue that since there are several impediments to international risk sharing, the welfare gains from full international risk sharing, which have been the object of analysis in the previous literature, are not suggestive. Instead, we study the gains from feasible risk sharing and find that...

Central Bankers are currently facing big challenges in designing and implementing monetary policy, as well as with safeguarding financial stability, with the world economy still in the process of digesting the legacy of the crisis. The crisis has changed central banking in many ways: by shifting...

There is a broad consensus in the literature that costs of information processing and acquisition may generate costly disagreements in expectations among economic agents, and that central banks may play a central role in reducing such dispersion in expectations. This paper analyses empirically...