For the greater part of 2010, short-term and long-term interest rates in Belgium were at exceptionally low levels. Nominal interest rates reached historic lows ; in real terms, only the low point of 1974 remained unequalled. The yield curve was in turn relatively steep. In the first place, the...

Despite record-low interest rates, the pace of the current economic recovery has been only moderate. One reason is that the positive impact of lowered interest rates on consumer purchases of durable goods has diminished. Comparing the current economic recovery with those that followed the...

This article finds that even in the 1980's, when barriers to international capital mobility had been largely eliminated, there was no measurable tendency for real interest rates between the U.S. and the major industrial countries to converge. Moreover, the estimated short-run responses of both...