Central bankers’ conventional wisdom suggests that nominal interest rates should be raised to implement a lower inflation target. In contrast, I show that the standard New Keynesian monetary model predicts that nominal interest rates should be decreased to attain this goal. Real interest rates, however, are virtually unchanged. These results also hold in recent vintages of New Keynesian models ...

In today’s lending environment, cross-sell has become a way of life for most consumer lenders. Moving from a silo-product mentality to a consultative selling approach to help the customer with a variety of needs has resulted in a proliferation of cross-sell initiatives. While crosssell efforts appear widespread, many bankers and lenders are not effectively executing, which results in low cross-...

This session of the conference is titled: “Fiscal Policy in a Monetary Union”. What is a central banker’s role in such a discussion? Well, Mervyn King once said: “Central banks are often accused of being obsessed with inflation. This is untrue. If they are obsessed with anything, it is with fiscal policy.” As so often, Mervyn King was right, we central bankers are indeed obsessed with fiscal po...

This paper outlines the results from a web-based survey of first time users of a bankers online knowledge sharing. Palmer ́s web metrics were used to investigate the effects of key website characteristics on intention to return, satisfaction and self-efficacy. Partial least squares estimation was used to estimate both the measurement and structural parameters in our structural equation model. St...

EGISLATION is being considered which would allow depository financial institutions throughout the nation to offer to households interest-paying checking accounts, more popularly known as NOW (Negotiable Order of Withdrawal) accounts. Bankers, in general, are concerned about the effects on earnings of such a regulatory change. Several studies of NOW accounts, however, suggest that this concern m...

It is widely believed, at least among central bankers, that “independence” is a prerequisite for achieving the goals that traditionally have been assigned to central banks specifically for achieving price stability. “Independence” does not mean literally independence from government, because central banks here and abroad are almost always part of government. The relationship of central banks to...

This paper exposes a fundamental tension between the micro-prudential objective of subjecting banks to greater discipline through debt markets and the macro-prudential objective of containing systemic risk. We show that banks are illiquid due to the inability of bankers to credibly pre-commit to asset choices. Bank debt can reduce this illiquidity by disciplining bankers with the threat of prem...

Background. The social and economic changes taking place in developing countries are influencing the pace at which hypertension and its risk factors are expanding. As opposed to the already established inverse association in developed nations, the association between socioeconomic status and hypertension in developing countries is poor and inconsistent. This study aims to determine the associat...