I provide an integrated analysis of monetary and macroprudential policies in a model economy featuring a financial friction and a nominal wage rigidity. In this set-up, the monetary authority faces a trade-off between macroeconomic and financial stability: While expansionary counter-cyclical monetary policy prevents involuntary unemployment, it also amplifies an inefficient reallocation of capital across sectors. The main contribution of the analysis is threefold: First it highlights a novel channel through which monetary policy can impact financial stability. Second, it shows that, by itself, monetary policy can significantly mitigate the wedge between the constrained efficient and the competitive allocation. Third, regardless of the availability of macroprudential tools, stabilizing demand is usually not optimal for monetary policy.

This note overviews macroprudential policy options that have been proposed to address the systemic risks experienced during the recent financial crisis. It contributes to the policy debate by providing a taxonomy of macroprudential policies in terms of the specific negative externalities in the financial system that these policies are meant to address, and discusses their interrelations and some key implementation issues.

An assessment of the current state and future prospects of financial regulation in Europe.

Analyses governance structures for international finance, evaluates current regulatory reforms and proposes a new governance system for global financial markets.

The recent crisis showed that price stability does not guarantee macroeconomic stability. In several countries, dangerous financial imbalances developed under low inflation and small output gaps. To ensure macroeconomic stability, policy has to include financial stability as an additional objective. But a new objective demands new tools: macroprudential tools that can target specific sources of financial imbalances (something monetary policy is not well suited to do). Effective macroprudential policies (which include a range of constraints on leverage and the composition of balance sheets) could then contain risks ex ante and help build buffers to absorb shocks ex post.

The financial systems of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have been widely resilient to the global financial crisis, which reflects strong progress in both macroeconomic management and prudential oversight. However, the current juncture provides a unique tapestry upon which this book examines several key questions and challenges looking forward. Does LAC continue to underperform on some key financial development indicators and, if so, why? How can LAC's financial systems contribute more effectively to the region's welfare and growth? How can LAC secure the benefits of deepening financial development while avoiding the fault lines that recently burst to the surface in other parts of the world?

We investigate the role of macroprudential policies in mitigating liquidity traps driven by deleveraging, using a simple Keynesian model. When constrained agents engage in deleveraging, the interest rate needs to fall to induce unconstrained agents to pick up the decline in aggregate demand. However, if the fall in the interest rate is limited by the zero lower bound, aggregate demand is insufficient and the economy enters a liquidity trap. In such an environment, agents' exante leverage and insurance decisions are associated with aggregate demand externalities. The competitive equilibrium allocation is constrained inefficient. Welfare can be improved by ex-ante macroprudential policies such as debt limits and mandatory insurance requirements. The size of the required intervention depends on the differences in marginal propensity to consume between borrowers and lenders during the deleveraging episode. In our model, contractionary monetary policy is inferior to macroprudential policy in addressing excessive leverage, and it can even have the unintended consequence of increasing leverage.

In today's increasingly globalized environment, many economic fundamentals need to be reconsidered in order to regain stability in the global marketplace. One such consideration is the failing dynamics of the international tax infrastructure. Neoliberalism 2.0 brings a 21st century assessment of the Pigovian taxes, considering a completely new calibration of the international tax systems, inspired by the historically developed Pigovian tax model. The book considers the impact neoliberalism had and will have on regulatory infrastructure, democracy in an era of globalization and reduced legitimation of the national state. The Pigovian model brings home the often forgotten relationship between taxation (as a part of the regulatory sphere), macro-economics, and the political-philosophical context in which law and economics emerge. The model also takes into account the phenomena of globalization and financialization and is tested using the financial sector as an example. This book addresses the many challenges a Pigovian shift would imply for the sovereign and its national economies. Neoliberalism 2.0 demonstrates the ability to design a paradigm-changing alternative to the current tax infrastructure, while taking into account a low economic growth environment of the future, the implications of globalization and the changing relationship between citizens and their state.

The Research Summaries in the September 2013 IMF Research Bulletin focus on “External Conditions and Debt Sustainability in Latin America” (Gustavo Adler and Sebastian Sosa) and “Monetary Policy Cyclicality in Emerging Markets” (Donal McGettigan, Kenji Moriyama, and Chad Steinberg). In the Q&A, Itai Aigur and Sunil Sharma discuss “Seven Questions on Macroprudential Policy Frameworks.” The Research Bulletin also includes an updated listing of recent IMF Working Papers, Staff Discussion Notes, and Recommended Readings from the IMF Bookstore, as well as information on a forthcoming conference. The IMF Economic Review’s new Impact Factor is also highlighted.

The third edition of a leading text on the microeconomic foundations of banking, comprehensively updated with new coverage of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, fintech, and the latest research in banking theory. The banking industry has undergone seismic change in the twenty-first century, from the overhaul of regulation in the wake of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis to the digitalization of the economy and the disruption of traditional business models by ascendant tech giants. Now in a comprehensively updated third edition, this essential graduate-level text on the microeconomic foundations of banking provides the rigorous theoretical approach required to understand these new structures and norms, functioning as a user’s guide to recent academic literature. Microeconomics of Banking offers a comprehensive view of the evolution of banking theory and the rapidly changing realm of financial intermediation, examining the central issues and offering the necessary tools for understanding how they have been modeled. New edition highlights: Up-to-date coverage of the latest research in banking theory as well as the events of the global financial crisis and resultant Basel III regulatory framework New chapters on liquidity and systemic risk New material throughout on cryptocurrencies, fintech, and other facets of a digitalized economy