Suchergebnisse

Using new quarterly narrative evidence, this paper examines the macroeconomic impact of reforms of unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the euro area from a Bayesian narrative panel VAR. The approach complements existing micro-econometric evidence by aligning short- and mediumterm effects in a unified framework and assessing state dependencies. Liberalising reforms result in temporary wage declines and highly persistent increases in economic activity and employment. In contrast to UB reforms, the effects of EPL reforms on employment emerge only gradually.This paper develops a simple analytical framework to study the impact of central bank policy-rate changes on banks' credit supply and risk-taking incentives. Unobservable expost bank monitoring of loans creates an external-financing constraint, which determines bank leverage. Unobservable, costly ex-ante screening of borrowers determines the level of bank risk-taking. More risk-taking tightens the external-financing constraint. The policy rate affects the external-financing constraint because it affects both the return on outside investors' alternative investments and loan rates. In a low rate environment, a policy-rate cut reduces bank funding costs less because of a zero lower bound (ZLB) on retail deposit rates. Bank risk-taking is a necessary but not sufficient for a policy-rate cut to become contractionary ("reversal"). Reversal can occur even though banks' net-interest margins increase. Credit market competition plays an important role for the interplay of monetary policy and financing s tability. When banks have market power, a policy-rate cut can increase lending and still lead to risk-taking. We use our analytical framework to discuss the literature on how monetary policy affects the credit supply of banks, with special emphasis on low and negative rates.

Previous literature and some new data on the relationship between steering wheel reversal rate (SRR) and driving task demand are discussed in terms of a set of theoretical assumptions proposed by Macdonald and Hoffmann (1978). SRR is generally expected to increase with increasing task demand; however, several recent studies found a significant decrease in SRR. It is argued that whether the relationship is positive or negative depends on the level of task difficulty relative to the driver's capacity to cope with it.

The reversal interest rate is the rate at which accommodative monetary policy reverses and becomes contractionary for lending. We theoretically demonstrate its existence in a macroeconomic model featuring imperfectly competitive banks that face financial frictions. When interest rates are cut too low, further monetary stimulus cuts into banks' profit margins, depressing their net worth and curtailing their credit supply. Similarly, when interest rates are low for too long, the persistent drag on bank profitability eventually outweighs banks' initial capital gains, also stifling credit supply. We quantify the importance of this mechanism within a calibrated New Keynesian model. (JEL E12, E32, E43, E44, E52, G21, L25)