The bargaining power of international banks is currently still very high as compared to what it was at the time of the Bretton Woods conference. As a consequence, systemic financial crises are likely to remain recurrent phenomena with large effects on macroeconomic aggregates. Mainstream...

In an Islamic economy, the financial sector functions to support the real sector. There are no interest rate based debt instruments. Financial assets are based on risk and return sharing and are contingent claims. Real as well as monetary forces determine the rate of return. As in traditional...

What is the role of the financial sector in explaining business cycles? This question is as old as the field of macroeconomics, and an extensive body of research conducted since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 has offered new answers. The specific idea put forward in this article is that...

What can history can tell us about the relationship between the banking system, financial crises, the global economy, and economic performance? Evidence shows that in the advanced economies we live in a world that is more financialized than ever before as measured by importance of credit in the...

This paper reviews the literature on financial crises focusing on three specific aspects. First, what are the main factors explaining financial crises? Since many theories on the sources of financial crises highlight the importance of sharp fluctuations in asset and credit markets, the paper...

We analyze the feedback mechanisms between economic downturns and financial stress for several euro area countries. Our study employs newly constructed financial condition indices that incorporate banking variables extensively. We apply a non-linear Vector Smooth Transition Autoregressive...

We analyze the feedback mechanisms between economic downturns and financial stress for euro area countries. Our study employs newly constructed financial condition indices that incorporate extensively banking variables. We apply a nonlinear Vector Smooth Transition Autoregressive (VSTAR) model...

Understanding private saving behavior of the citizenry is crucial for informed policy decisions in an economy. The reason is not far-fetched; economies gain sustained growth from investment through a positive saving culture. However, much of the available literature is on aggregate savings rather...

This study investigated the impact of financial sector development on domestic investment in selected Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries for the years 1985 to 2017. The study employed the Augmented Mean Group procedure which accounts for country specific heterogeneity...