Credit crunch and the macroeconomy

10th Annual Bank of Finland/CEPR Conference
Co-organized with the Cass Business School
15–16 October 2009
Helsinki

Financial market illiquidity and deleveraging, caused by the ongoing global financial crisis, is leading in turn to a substantial reduction in both the demand for and the supply of credit in many countries. This credit crunch is contributing to the depth of recession, interfering with the transmission of monetary policy, and posing questions about the operation of fiscal policy and its impact on the pace and sustainability of the recovery.

Thursday 15 October

10.30–10.45   Registration, coffee
10.45–11.00 Welcome and opening address
    Welcome by the Bank of Finland
    Jouko Vilmunen, Head of Research (Bank of Finland)
    Opening address
    Seppo Honkapohja, Member of the Board (Bank of Finland)
11.00–13.00 Session I Chair: Jouko Vilmunen
  Paper Presentation  On the real effects of banks' bailouts: micro-evidence from Japan
  Author(s) Mariassunta Giannetti (Stockholm School of Economics), Andrei Simonov (Eli Graduate School of Management)
  Comments Charlotta Grönqvist (Bank of Finland)
    Short break
  Paper Presentation The macroeconomics of money market freezes
  Author(s) Max Bruche (CEMFI), Javier Suarez (CEMFI)
  Comments Filippo Taddei (Collegio Carlo Alberto)
13.00–14.00   Lunch
14.00–15.00 Session II Chair: Tuomas Takalo (Bank of Finland)
  Paper Presentation Cross-country causes and consequences of the 2008 crisis: early warning
  Author(s) Andrew Rose (University of California, Berkeley), Mark Spiegel (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)
  Comments Assaf Razin (Tel Aviv University & Cornell University)
15.00–15.30   Coffee break
15.30–17.00 Session III Chair: Antti Ripatti (Bank of Finland)
  Paper Presentation Monetary policy and the financing of firms
  Author(s) Fiorella de Fiore (European Central Bank), Pedro Teles (Banco de Portugal), Oreste Tristani (European Central Bank)
  Comments Alistair Milne (Cass Business School)
  Paper Presentation Lending relationships and monetary policy
  Author(s) Yunus Aksoy (Birkbeck, University of London), Henrique Basso (Uppsala University), Javier Goto-Martinez (City University of London)
  Comments Markus Haavio (Bank of Finland)
      
19.00   Dinner at restaurant Grotesk

Friday 16 October

9.00–10.30 Session IV Chair: Alistair Milne
  Paper Presentation Unnatural selection at work: an analysis of bank–firm relationships in Italy after Lehman
  Author(s) Ugo Albertazzi (Banca d'Italia), Dominico Marchetti (Banca d'Italia)
  Comments Diego Rodríguez (European Central Bank)
  Paper Presentation Firm default and aggregate fluctuations
  Author(s) Tor Jacobson (Sveriges Riksbank), Rikard Kindell (Svenska Handelsbanken), Jesper Lindé (Federal Board of Governors), Kasper Roszbach (Sveriges Riksbank)
  Comments Giovanni Calice (University of Bath)
10.30–11.00   Coffee break
11.00–12.00 Session V Chair: Esa Jokivuolle (Bank of Finland)
  Paper Presentation Liquidity constraints and non-market clearing: a recipe for recession?
  Author(s) John Driffill (Birkbeck, University of London), Marcus Miller (University of Warwick)
  Comments Elisa Newby (Cambridge University)
12.00–13.00   Panel
    Alistair Milne (Cass Business School), Laura Kodres (International Monetary Fund), Javier Suarez (CEMFI)
13.00–14.00   Lunch
14.15–14.30   Closing words and end of the conference