While the world real interest rate is potentially an important mechanism for transmitting international shocks to small open economies, much of the recent quantitative research that studies this mechanism concludes that it has little effect on output, investment, and net exports. We reexamine...

We examine whether “imputed” interest rates obtained from bank financial statements are unbiased estimates of “offered” interest rates that the same banks report in surveys. We find evidence of a statistically significant amount of bias. However, the statistical bias that we document...

This paper addresses the impact market conditions on bank deposit interest rates. Examining data for 1988-2000, we find that rates are affected by market size structure (defined as the distribution of market shares of banks of different sizes whether or not the market share is achieved entirely...

What instruments of monetary policy must be used in order to implement a unique equilibrium? This paper revisits the issues addressed by Sargent and Wallace (1975) on the multiplicity of equilibria when policy is conducted with interest rate rules. We show that the appropriate interest rate...

Currency crises that coincide with banking crises tend to share four elements. First, governments provide guarantees to domestic and foreign bank creditors. Second, banks do not hedge their exchange rate risk. Third, there is a lending boom before the crises. Finally, when the currency/banking...