IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/7944.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Central Banks and the Financial System

Author

Listed:
  • Giavazzi, Francesco
  • Giovannini, Alberto

Abstract

Financial systems are inherently fragile because of the very function which makes them valuable: liquidity transformation. Thus regulatory reforms, as urgent and desirable as they are, will definitely strengthen the financial system and decrease the risk of liquidity crises, but they will never eliminate it. This leaves monetary policy with a very important task. In a framework that recognizes the interactions between monetary policy and liquidity transformation 'optimal' monetary policy would consist of a modified Taylor rule in which the real rate reflects the possibility of liquidity crises and recognizes the possibility that liquidity transformation gets subsidized. Failure to recognize this point risks leading the economy into a low interest rate trap: low interest rates induce too much risk taking and increase the probability of crises. These crises, in turn, require low interest rates to maintain the financial system alive. Raising rates becomes extremely difficult in a severely weakened financial system, so monetary authorities remain stuck in a low interest rates trap. This seems a reasonable description of the situation we have experienced throughout the past decade

Suggested Citation

  • Giavazzi, Francesco & Giovannini, Alberto, 2010. "Central Banks and the Financial System," CEPR Discussion Papers 7944, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7944
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP7944
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Tirole, 2011. "Illiquidity and All Its Friends," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 287-325, June.
    2. Alan Greenspan, 1996. "Opening remarks," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 1-5.
    3. Bengt Holmstrom & Jean Tirole, 1998. "Private and Public Supply of Liquidity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 1-40, February.
    4. Douglas W. Diamond & Philip H. Dybvig, 2000. "Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 24(Win), pages 14-23.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jin Cao & Gerhard Illing, 2011. ""Interest rate trap", or: Why does the central bank keep the policy rate too low for too long time?," Working Paper 2011/12, Norges Bank.
    2. Andrzej Wojtyna, 2012. "Banki centralne po kryzysie: czy konieczne są zmiany instytucjonalne w strategii bezpośredniego celu inflacyjnego?," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 7-8, pages 45-65.
    3. Piotr Ciżkowicz & Andrzej Rzońca, 2014. "Interest Rates Close to Zero, Post-crisis Restructuring and Natural Interest Rate," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(3), pages 315-329.
    4. Badarau, Cristina & Popescu, Alexandra, 2014. "Monetary policy and credit cycles: A DSGE analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 301-312.
    5. Garry J. Schinasi & Edwin M. Truman, 2010. "Reform of the Global Financial Architecture," Working Paper Series WP10-14, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    6. Angelo Melino, 2011. "Moving Monetary Policy Forward: Why Small Steps - and a Lower Inflation Target - Make Sense for the Bank of Canada," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 319, January.
    7. Kyungsoo Kim & Byoung-Ki Kim & Hail Park, 2011. "Monetary policy framework and financial procyclicality: international evidence," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Macroprudential regulation and policy, volume 60, pages 51-57, Bank for International Settlements.
    8. Ramayandi, Arief & Rawat, Umang & Tang, Hsiao Chink, 2014. "Can Low Interest Rates be Harmful: An Assessment of the Bank Risk-Taking Channel in Asia," Working Papers on Regional Economic Integration 123, Asian Development Bank.
    9. Franco Bruni, 2011. "Europe and the World’s Economy Governance: The Monetary and Financial Perspective," Chapters, in: Carlo Secchi & Antonio Villafranca (ed.), Global Governance and the Role of the EU, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Lukas Scheffknecht, 2013. "Contextualizing Systemic Risk," ROME Working Papers 201317, ROME Network.
    11. Alin Marius ANDRIES & Vasile COCRIS & Ioana PLESCAU, 2015. "Low Interest Rates And Bank Risk-Taking: Has The Crisis Changed Anything? Evidence From The Eurozone," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 15, pages 125-148, June.
    12. Spaventa, Luigi & Giavazzi, Francesco, 2010. "Why the current account may matter in a monetary union: Lessons from the financial crisis in the Euro area," CEPR Discussion Papers 8008, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Cristina Badarau & Alexandra Popescu, 2015. "Monetary policy and financial stability: what role for the interest rate?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 359-374, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark A. Carlson & Burcu Duygan-Bump & William R. Nelson, 2015. "Why Do We Need Both Liquidity Regulations and a Lender of Last Resort? A Perspective from Federal Reserve Lending during the 2007-09 U.S. Financial Crisis," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-11, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Francesco Giavazzi & Alberto Giovannini, 2011. "Central Banks and the Financial System," Working Papers 425, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    3. Kreamer, Jonathan, 2022. "Financial intermediation and the supply of liquidity," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    4. Stefan Arping, 2015. "Banks and Market Liquidity," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 15-020/IV, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Diana Bonfim & Moshe Kim, 2012. "Liquidity risk in banking: is there herding?," Working Papers w201218, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    6. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2012. "Illiquid Banks, Financial Stability, and Interest Rate Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(3), pages 552-591.
    7. Imbierowicz, Björn & Rauch, Christian, 2014. "The relationship between liquidity risk and credit risk in banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 242-256.
    8. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    9. Diana Bonfim & Moshe Kim, 2012. "Systemic Liquidity Risk," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles and Banco de Portugal Economic Studies, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    10. Francesco Giavazzi & Alberto Giovannini, 2011. "Central Banks and the Financial System," Chapters, in: Sylvester Eijffinger & Donato Masciandaro (ed.), Handbook of Central Banking, Financial Regulation and Supervision, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Diana Bonfim & Moshe Kim, 2012. "Liquidity risk in banking: is there herding?," Working Papers w201218, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    12. Duan, Ying & Niu, Jijun, 2020. "Liquidity creation and bank profitability," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    13. König, Philipp J. & Pothier, David, 2018. "Safe but fragile: Information acquisition, sponsor support and shadow bank runs," Discussion Papers 15/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    14. Caballero, Ricardo J. & Krishnamurthy, Arvind, 2004. "Smoothing sudden stops," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 104-127, November.
    15. Joshua Aizenman & Jaewoo Lee, 2007. "International Reserves: Precautionary Versus Mercantilist Views, Theory and Evidence," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 191-214, April.
    16. Michiel Bijlsma & Wouter Elsenburg & Michiel van Leuvensteijn, 2010. "Four Futures for Finance; A scenario study," CPB Document 211.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    17. Hirano, Tomohiro & Inaba, Masaru & Yanagawa, Noriyuki, 2015. "Asset bubbles and bailouts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(S), pages 71-89.
    18. Chatterji, Shurojit & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2010. "Liquidity, moral hazard and bank crises," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 27, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    19. Hou, Xiaohui & Li, Shuo & Li, Wanli & Wang, Qing, 2018. "Bank diversification and liquidity creation: Panel Granger-causality evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 87-98.
    20. Pagès, Henri, 2013. "Bank monitoring incentives and optimal ABS," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 30-54.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial markets; Monetray policy;

    JEL classification:

    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7944. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.