Why Major League Baseball keeps coming back to Japan
When Shohei Ohtani stepped onto the field at the Tokyo Dome in March 2025, he wasn’t just playing a game – he was carrying forward more than 100 years of baseball ties between the U.S. and Japan.
Hidden weaknesses: the role of unrealized losses in monetary policy transmission
This paper investigates how unrealized losses on banks’ amortized cost securities affect monetary policy transmission to bank lending in the euro area. Leveraging the sharp increase in interest rates between 2022 and 2023 and using granular supervisory data on security holdings and loan-level credit register data, we show that a one percentage point increase in the share of unrealized losses on amortized cost securities amplifies the contractionary effect of monetary tightening on lending supply by approximately one percentage point.
Macroprudential policy, monetary policy and non-bank financial intermediation
This paper examines the interplay between macroprudential policy, monetary policy and the non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI) sector, drawing on recent research and zooming in particularly on evidence from the euro area2. It documents the growth in the NBFI sector over the past two decades and its particular role in financing the real economy, assesses systemic risks that can emanate from the sector, considers how it interacts with monetary policy, and discusses the implications for macroprudential regulation.
Hidden weaknesses: the role of unrealized losses in monetary policy transmission
This paper investigates how unrealized losses on banks’ amortized cost securities affect monetary policy transmission to bank lending in the euro area. Leveraging the sharp increase in interest rates between 2022 and 2023 and using granular supervisory data on security holdings and loan-level credit register data, we show that a one percentage point increase in the share of unrealized losses on amortized cost securities amplifies the contractionary effect of monetary tightening on lending supply by approximately one percentage point.
Macroprudential policy, monetary policy and non-bank financial intermediation
This paper examines the interplay between macroprudential policy, monetary policy and the non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI) sector, drawing on recent research and zooming in particularly on evidence from the euro area2. It documents the growth in the NBFI sector over the past two decades and its particular role in financing the real economy, assesses systemic risks that can emanate from the sector, considers how it interacts with monetary policy, and discusses the implications for macroprudential regulation.
Is China’s reported ban on BHP a bluff, or a glimpse of the future?
Auscape/GettyThough they still haven’t been officially confirmed, reports China’s state-owned buyer told steelmakers to stop purchasing iron ore from Australian mining giant BHP have rattled both markets and Canberra.
Spencer Pratt Lost His House in the Palisades Fire and Thinks Gavin Newsom Should Take the Blame
After losing his house in the Palisades fire, Spencer Pratt has gone from the archetype of celebrity emptiness to community activist — and become a magnet for Republican politicians.
A Tech Expo Shows What China Can Make, but Not Who’ll Buy It All
The vast Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou stood as a rebuke to U.S. efforts to hem in China’s technology. But the real competition is internal, and profits are hard to find.
The impact of capital requirements on bank capital
This paper presents the first causal evidence on how banks adjust their voluntary capital buffers (the capital headroom above the required level) in response to changes in capital requirements. Using granular euro area data and exploiting the threshold-based assignment of Other Systemically Important Institution (O-SII) buffers within a regression discontinuity design, we study the liability side of banks’ balance sheets, complementing the asset-focused literature on lending and risk-taking.
Durability, essentiality, and the transmission of monetary policy to household consumption
In this paper, we examine how different household consumption items respond to monetary policy shocks in the euro area. Specifically, we classify household consumption along two key dimensions: durability and essentiality. Our findings reveal pronounced heterogeneity in responses across these dimensions. First, durable items are highly sensitive to monetary policy shocks, whereas non-durable items exhibit weaker responses. Second, non-essential items react more strongly than essential items.
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