chrisbowdler's name

A key feature of credit markets in the aftermath of the credit crunch has been extreme inequality in access to credit. Large corporations or relatively high net worth individuals perceived to have 'skin in the game' thanks to large amounts of loss absorbing...

The Bank of England's decision to resume quantitative easing through a further £75bn of asset purchases is a necessary step forward in an economy in which the outlook for private, government and foreign demand is bleak. In order for the move to have a...

As the search for a solution to the debt crisis affecting Greece and other European countries continues it's natural to ask exactly what part the constraints associated with monetary union have played in the origins and propagation of the crisis, and...

The Federal Reserve has announced plans to implement Operation Twist over the next 10 months. During that time the Fed will use proceeds from sales of Treasury debt with less than three years to maturity to re-invest in longer maturity Treasury bonds....

During the last couple of weeks there have been conflicting assessments of the priorities for income tax cuts in the UK. A group of economists argued for scrapping the 50p top rate on the grounds that it is undermining national competitiveness and growth...

After reading Marvin Goodfriend's excellent JME article on Fed policy during the crisis I need to update an earlier post on how QE relates to conventional open market operations (OMOs) . In that piece I noted that traditional OMOs keep the size of the...

I am currently giving a short course for summer school students at Oriel College. The lectures address recent important events in the world economy and the challenges that they pose for policy-makers. The topics include some thoughts on fiscal policy...

There have been a number of recent contributions making the case for QE3 in the United States following weak employment and GDP numbers. Recent market reactions to Bernanke's efforts to distance the Fed from a further round of quantitative easing prompted...

I will not be doing any posts for the next few weeks due to various teaching commitments. During the second half of May I plan to write up some thoughts on (i) the UK fiscal position, including some arguments for reducing the speed of fiscal tightening;...

Recent commentary has highlighted the fact that a Greek debt default would be a disaster for ECB policy-makers given the central bank's exposure to losses based on its past and prospective activities as the Euro area lender of last resort (LOLR). A 50%...