Central Bank Balance Sheet And Real Business Cycles

Central Bank Balance Sheet and Real Business Cycles argues that a deeper comprehension of changes to the central bank balance sheet can lead to more effective policymaking. Any transaction engaged in by the central bank—issuing currency, conducting foreign exchange operations, investing its own funds, intervening to provide emergency liquidity assistance and carrying out monetary policy operations—influences its balance sheet. Despite this, many central banks throughout the world have largely ignored balance sheet movements, and have instead focused on implementing interest rates. In this book, Mustapha Abiodun Akinkunmi highlights the challenges and controversies faced by central banks in the past and present when implementing policies, and analyzes the links between these policies, the central bank balance sheet, and the consequences to economies as a whole. He argues that the composition and evolution of the central bank balance sheet provides a valuable basis for understanding the needs of an economy, and is an important tool in developing strategies that would most effectively achieve policy goals. This book is an important resource for anyone interested in monetary policy or whose work is affected by the actions of the policies of central banks.

Econometric Business Cycle Research deals with econometric business cycle research (EBCR), a term introduced by the Nobel-laureate Jan Tinbergen for his econometric method of testing (economic) business cycle theories. EBCR combines economic theory and measurement in the study of business cycles, i.e., ups and downs in overall economic activity. We assess four methods of EBCR: business cycle indicators, simultaneous equations models, vector autoregressive systems and real business indicators. After a sketch of the history of the methods, we investigate whether the methods meet the goals of EBCR: the three traditional ones, description, forecasting and policy evaluation, and the one Tinbergen introduced, the implementation|testing of business cycles. The first three EBCR methods are illustrated for the Netherlands, a typical example of a small, open economy. The main conclusion of the book is that simultaneous equation models are the best vehicle for EBCR, if all its goals are to be attained simultaneously. This conclusion is based on a fairly detailed assessment of the methods and is not over-turned in the empirical illustrations. The main conclusion does not imply the end of other EBCR methods. Not all goals have to be met with a single vehicle, other methods might serve the purpose equally well - or even better. For example, if one is interested in business cycle forecasts, one might prefer a business cycle indicator or vector autoregressive system. A second conclusion is that many ideas/concepts that play an important role in current discussions about econometric methodology in general and EBCR in particular, were put forward in the 1930s and 1940s. A third conclusion is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to compare the outcomes of RBC models to outcomes of the other three methods, because RBC modellers are not interested in modelling business cycles on an observation-per-observation basis. A more general conclusion in this respect is that methods should adopt the same concept of business cycles to make them comparable.

This paper presents an overview of exposures in the balance sheets of central banks, banks, and other depository institutions during the past decade, with emphasis on asset growth and currency composition. It exploits the IMF’s SRF-based monetary data to show: (i) there was a widely observed buildup of assets prior to the global financial crisis, but there has been no significant reduction in its wake; (ii) the foreign currency composition of the balance sheets of banks and other depository institutions remained remarkably constant in spite of the crisis, significant changes in the composition of balance sheets, and globalization, and does not seem to have been significantly influenced by the behavior of exchange rates; and (iii) exposure to households increased prior to the crisis, but this increased risk was offset by increased capitalization.

This volume presents: * the authoritative anthology on RBC * an extensive introduction which contains an expository summary and critical evaluation of RBC.

Written by two expert economists, this comprehensive Advanced Introduction provides a thorough and up-to-date analysis of central banks and monetary policy, analysing the ways in which views about monetary policy have developed and changed.

What is the link between the financial cycle - financial booms, followed by busts - and the real economy? What is the direction of this link and how salient is this connection? This unique book examines these fundamental questions and offers a paramoun