Lending cycles and real outcomes: Costs of political misalignment
Government ownership of banks can help solve credit market failures and stabilise the supply of credit over the business cycle. However, it can also...
Opinion Pieces
Cryptocurrencies: Financial stability and fairness
Cryptocurrencies are primarily held today for speculative reasons and see little economic use outside of that. This column argues that if private...
The hierarchy of financial policies
Financial policy is determined in multiple domains by separate government authorities. This column explores the hierarchical ranking of these domains...
Which numerical computing language is best: Julia, MATLAB, Python or R?
Julia, MATLAB, Python and R are among the most commonly used numerical programming languages by economic researchers. In this post, Jon Danielsson and...
Cryptocurrencies are lousy investments
Are cryptocurrencies the future of money, Ponzi schemes, speculators’ dreams, or just a prosperity gospel? While there is money to be made in the...
Cryptocurrencies
Are cryptocurrencies the future of money, Ponzi schemes, speculators dream, freedom or just a cult?
Low risk as a predictor of financial crises
Reliable indicators of future financial crises are important for policymakers and practitioners. While most indicators consider an observation of high...
Macroprudential stress tests
Current stress testing of banks is focused on the resiliency of individual banks to exogenous shocks. This column describes how the next generation of...
Cryptocurrencies don't make sense
Cryptocurrencies are supposedly a new and superior form of money and investments – the way of the future. The author of this column, however, does not...
Artificial intelligence and the stability of markets
Artificial intelligence is increasingly used to tackle all sorts of problems facing people and societies. This column considers the potential benefits...
Brexit and systemic risk
Brexit is likely to cause considerable disruption for financial markets. Some worry that it may also increase systemic risk. This column revisits the...
Why macropru can end up being procyclical
Discretionary macroprudential policies aim to be countercyclical by adjusting risk-taking across the financial cycle. This column argues that the...
The fatal flaw in macropru: It ignores political risk
Political risk is a major cause of systemic financial risk. This column argues that both the integrity and the legitimacy of macroprudential policy...
Why it doesn't make sense to hold bonds
Investor demand for bonds is very high. This column argues that this is surprising because under almost any likely inflation scenario, including...
On the financial market consequences of Brexit
Brexit creates new opportunities and new risks for the British and EU financial markets. Both could benefit, but a more likely outcome is a fall in...
Cyber risk as systemic risk
The threat to the financial system posed by cyber risk is often claimed to be systemic. This column argues against this, pointing out that almost all...
