Central banks

We study the evolution of bank branch networks in ten CESEE countries between 2013 and 2021. Using a manually compiled dataset of all branches and their geocoordinates, we document a decline exceeding 30%, with substantial heterogeneity across and within countries. We show that banking market consolidation is a key driver of closures, while profitability and local economic growth mitigate them. Branches in highly urban or very rural areas close more often. Competitive effects are nonlinear: moderate clustering lowers closure risk, but intense competition increases it.

We study the short-run macroeconomic transmission of a US–China tariff war in an open economy multi-sector New Keynesian model with input–output linkages, sectoral nominal rigidities, and heterogeneous currency invoicing. A reciprocal 10 percentage-point tariff increase generates asymmetric incidence: the tariff-imposing country bears more of the inflationary burden, while the targeted country experiences the larger output contraction. Production networks amplify this contraction by propagating the shock beyond the directly tariffed bilateral margin.

The Money Markets Committee is a forum for market participants and authorities to discuss the UK unsecured deposits and funding market and securities lending and repo markets.

We develop a general equilibrium theory of financial intermediation and its implications for liquidity regulation. The model is built around an agency problem arising from leveraged intermediation: banks finance loan origination with deposits and face moral hazard in risk management, while holding cash mitigates these incentives at the cost of foregone investment returns. Liquidity demand therefore emerges endogenously from incentive considerations rather than from exposure to exogenous funding shocks.