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This paper reviews the main theories of interest rate determination and studies the dynamics of the real interest rate in US. Using cointegration techniques we search for equilibrium relationships between the real interest rate, monetary factors and real factors and we study how these relationships change with the policy regimes. We analyze monthly US data since early 20th century and find equilibrium relationships between a measure of the real interest rate, the policy interest rate and industrial production growth only after the end of the Bretton Woods. Moreover, we find that the equilibrium relationships between these variables are not invariant to changes in the monetary policy regime.

We examine the welfare effects of bailouts in economies exposed to sovereign default risk. When a government of a small open economy requests a bailout from an international financial institution, it receives a non-defaultable loan of size G that comes with imposed debt limits. The government endogenously asks for the bailout during recessions and repays it when the economy recovers. Hence, the bailout acts as an imperfect state contingent asset that makes the economy better off. The bailout duration is endogenous and increases with its size. The bailout size creates non-trivial tradeoffs between receiving a larger amount of relatively cheap resources precisely in times of need on the one hand, and facing longer-lasting financial constraints and accumulated interest payments, on the other hand. We characterize and quantify these tradeoffs and document that welfare gains of bailouts are hump-shaped in the size of bailout loans.