The admission by the Greek government on October 18, 2009, of large-scale accounting fraud in its national accounts sparked an unprecedented sovereign debt crisis that rapidly spread to the Euro-Zone's weakest member states. As the crisis increasingly drove a wedge between a seemingly resilient...

This paper studies the microfoundations of the so-called “gold device” policy by analysing a new dataset on the Bank of England’s operations in the gold market at the heyday of the classical gold standard. It explains that “gold devices” must be understood in connection to the Bank’s...

This paper studies the microfoundations of the so-called "gold device" policy by analysing a new dataset on the Bank of England's operations in the gold market at the heyday of the classical gold standard. It explains that "gold devices" must be understood in connection to the Bank's role as...

Levels of interest rates below historical norms may have enhanced financial instability in both developed and in developing economies during the 2000´s. The risk-taking channel of monetary transmission policy is a recent theory that explains theinteraction between risk perceptions of the...

Levels of interest rates below historical norms may have enhanced financial instability in developed and developing economies during the 2000's. The risk taking channel of monetary policy transmission is a recent theory that explains the interaction between risk perceptions of the financial...

The recent financial crisis has brought to the forefront the need of a better understanding of the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy. The main step forward in this direction has drawn on work aimed at stressing the role of the financial sector in this transmission. Particular emphasis...

This paper documents that monetary policy affects credit supply through banks’ cost of funding. Using administrative credit-registry and regulatory bank data, we find that banks can incur an increase in their funding costs of at least 30 basis points before they adjust their lending. For...

This paper considers money creation by banks and central banking in a model where a means of payment is issued by both the central bank and banks, and the private issuance is endogenous in competitive equilibrium. The economy lasts for two dates, but the central bank gets its purely nominal...

We identify the effects of monetary policy on credit risk-taking using a unique dataset covering the population of corporate borrowers in Norway. We find that a lower benchmark interest rate (interbank rates or overnight rates) induces the average bank to grant more loans to risky firms. We also...

We study the risk-taking channel of monetary policy in Bolivia, a dollarized country where monetary changes are transmitted exogenously from the US. We find that a lower policy rate spurs the granting of riskier loans, to borrowers with worse credit histories, lower ex-ante internal ratings, and...