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There has been extensive empirical research on the role of credit markets in the transmission of US monetary policy, but the evidence for other countries is scarce. This paper compares the US experience with a set of 13 European countries by examining monetary VARs including banks' balance sheets in the spirit of Bernanke and Blinder (1992). It is shown that the VAR methodology provides plausible results for interpreting interest rate shocks as monetary policy shocks in most countries. The evolution of bank lending after a monetary contraction is then analysed. For most countries, it is shown that bank loans decline more than money in the medium run. In the short run, however, loans are sticky and react less than money. Also, loans and output responses to an increase in interest rate tend to be more synchronized than those of money and output. This evidence is similar to the US and is consistent with the broad credit channel of monetary policy.

This paper describes the BBVA-ARIES, a Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR) for the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In addition to providing EMU-wide growth and inflation forecasts, the model provides an assessment of the interactions between key EMU macroeconomic variables and external ones, such as world GDP or commodity prices. A comparison of the forecasts generated by the model and those of private analysts and public institutions reveals a very positive balance in favour of the model. For their part, the simulations allow us to assess the potential macroeconomic effects of macroeconomic developments in the EMU. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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