This is the introduction to a volume which explores the changing role of banks in the financial intermediation process. It accompanies a Liberty Street Blog series. Both discuss the complexity of the credit intermediation chain associated with securitization and note the growing participation of...

Global banks played a significant role in transmitting the 2007-09 financial crisis to emerging-market economies. We examine adverse liquidity shocks on main developed-country banking systems and their relationships to emerging markets across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, isolating loan...

What are the economic effects of an interest rate cut when an economy is in the midst of a financial crisis? Under what conditions will a cut stimulate output and employment, and raise welfare? Under what conditions will a cut have the opposite effects? We answer these questions in a general...

We study the effects of nominal debt on the optimal sequential choice of monetary and debt policy. When the stock of debt is nominal, the incentive to generate unanticipated inflation increases the cost of the outstanding debt even if no unanticipated inflation episodes occur in equilibrium....