Words are critical in how the public perceives the work of central banks and the quality of monetary policy. Press releases that accompany policy rate decisions and, where available, the minutes of central bank committee meetings, are focal points for the media in public discussions about the...

We examine the properties of house price fluctuations across 18 advanced economies over the past 40 years. We ask two specific questions: First, how synchronized are housing cycles across these countries? Second, what are the main shocks driving movements in global house prices? To address these...

The global financial crisis of 2008 was a crisis affecting both the financial sector and the “real economy”. This paper analyzes the transmission of unexpected shocks from the financial sector in the US to other countries and sectors. We test the hypothesis that the financial crisis spread...

Using both panel and cross-sectional models for 28 industrialized countries observed from 2001 to 2009, we report a number of findings regarding the determinants of the volatility of returns on cross-border asset holdings (i.e., equity and debt). Greater portfolio concentration and an increase...

This paper investigates asymmetric increasing trends in dependence in major international equity markets. To this end, we develop a multiple-regime smooth-transition copula GARCH model and address several important questions, including the number of regimes and the existence of increasing...

This paper investigates the influence of liquidity in the major developed and major developing economies on commodity prices. Liquidity is taken to be M2. A novel finding is that unanticipated increases in the BRIC countries’ liquidity is associated with significant and persistent increases in...

Asset market interconnectedness can give rise to significant contagion risks during periods of financial crises that extend beyond the risks associated with changes in volatilities and correlation. These channels include the transmission of shocks operating through changes in the higher order...

This paper investigates whether fi?nancial crises are alike by considering whether a single modelling framework can fi?t multiple distinct crises in which contagion effects link markets across national borders and asset classes. The crises con- sidered are Russia and LTCM in the second half of...

Oil exporters typically do not consider below-ground assets when allocating their sovereign wealth fund portfolios, and ignore above-ground assets when extracting oil. We present a unified framework for considering both. Subsoil oil should alter a fund’s portfolio through additional leverage...

This note presents a simple model that nests the “excess liquidity” and “savings glut” hypotheses of the debate on the recent asset price boom. It clarifies the notion of investors’ ‘search for yield’ and shows how financial frictions influence asset price dynamics.