The EU accession countries have made remarkable progress in developing their financial sectors. Nevertheless, potential risks to banking sector stability remain. We take stock of these risks, with a focus on the challenges posed by the EU accession process. Important potential risks we identify...

This paper is a contribution to the literature on the factors behind financial stability, focusing on monetary policy design. In particular, it assesses empirically for a sample of 79 countries in the period 1970 to 2000 whether the choice of the central bank objectives and the monetary policy...

Using a recently introduced nonparametric test, I investigate two important and distinct asymmetries in cross-country quarterly macroeconomic time series. Asymmetries are suggested by many theories (old and new), and those discovered aid in the selection of the appropriate nonlinear time series...

In this paper we reconcile two opposing views about the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption (EIS). Empirical studies using aggregate consumption data typically find that the EIS is close to zero (Hall, 1988). Calibrated models designed to match growth and fluctuations facts...

This paper reexamines the relationship between financial market imperfections and economic instability. I present a model in which financial accelerator effects come from adverse selection in credit markets. Unlike other models of the financial accelerator, the model I present has the potential...

Theoretical studies have shown that under unorthodox assumptions on preferences and production technologies, collateral constraints can act as a powerful amplification and propagation mechanism of exogenous shocks. We investigate whether or not this result hold under more standard assumptions....

This paper studies the role of collateral constraints in transforming small monetary shocks into large persistent output fluctuations. We do this by introducing money in the heterogeneous-agent real economy of Kiyotaki and Moore (1997). Money enters in a cash-in-advance constraint and is...

Over the last decade, research has shown that financing constraints have an important impact on many aspects of firm behavior and aggregate fluctuations. This paper undertakes a critical comparison of the three main financing constraint hypotheses- -the bank lending, collateral, and internal...

We calibrate an infinite-horizon model with endogenous growth and unemployment on actual data from the largest countries in the European Union. Two types of balanced-budget fiscal policy experiments are studied. First, the effects of separately changing the tax rates on capital, labor and...

The paper analyzes the convergence dynamics of a log-linearized open- economy neoclassical growth model under the assumptions of large adjustment costs for human capital investment, moderate adjustment costs for physical capital investment, and perfect capital mobility. The model can be...