Although reserve requirements (RR) have been used in emerging markets to smooth credit cycles, the transmission mechanism remains blurry. Using bank-level data, we unveil the interaction of RR with bank lending. We identify a new channel that works through a decline in banks' liquid assets and loan supply due to an increase in RR. "Quantitative tightening" through RR raises the short-term funding needs of the banking system, which is met by collateralized central bank lending, thus depleting banks' unencumbered liquid assets. Our results suggest that such a shift in bank liquidity is associated with a significant change in lending.JEL codes: E44, E51, E52

We develop a dynamic stochastic model of a middle-income, small open economy with a two-level banking intermediation structure, a risk-sensitive regulatory capital regime, and imperfect capital mobility. Firms borrow from a domestic bank and the bank borrows on world capital markets, in both cases subject to an endogenous premium. A sudden flood in capital flows generates an expansion in credit and activity, and asset price pressures. Countercyclical regulation, in the form of a Basel III-type rule based on real credit gaps, is effective at promoting macroeconomic stability (defined in terms of the volatility of a weighted average of inflation and the output gap) and financial stability (defined in terms of the volatility of a composite index of the nominal exchange rate and house prices). However, because the gain in terms of reduced volatility may exhibit diminishing returns, a countercyclical regulatory rule may need to be supplemented by other, more targeted, macroprudential instruments.

The performance of a simple, countercyclical reserve requirement rule is studied in a dynamic stochastic model of a small open economy with financial frictions, imperfect capital mobility, a managed float regime, and sterilized foreign exchange market intervention. Bank funding sources, domestic and foreign, are imperfect substitutes. The model is calibrated and used to study the effects of a temporary drop in the world risk-free interest rate. Consistent with stylized facts, the shock triggers an expansion in domestic credit and activity, asset price pressures, and a real appreciation. An optimal, credit-based reserve requirement rule, based on minimizing a composite loss function, helps to mitigate both macroeconomic and financial volatility-with the latter defined both in terms of a narrow measure based on the credit-to-output ratio, the ratio of capital flows to output, and interest rate spreads, and a broader measure that includes real asset prices as well. Greater reliance on sterilization implies a less aggressive optimal reserve requirements rule, implying that the two instruments are partial substitutes.

This paper analyzes the transmission process of monetary policy in a closed-economy New Keynesian model with monopolistic banking and a cost channel. Lending rates incorporate a risk premium, which depends on firms' net worth and cyclical output. The supply of bank loans is perfectly elastic at the prevailing commercial bank rate and so is the provision of central bank liquidity at the policy rate. The model is calibrated for a middle-income country. Numerical simulations show that credit market imperfections and sluggish adjustment of bank deposit rates may impart a substantial degree of persistence in the response of output and inflation to monetary shocks. With flexible wages, a relatively high elasticity of the risk premium with respect to cyclical output is required for a monetary contraction to lead to higher inflation.

a b s t r a c tThe business cycle effects of bank capital regulatory regimes are examined in a New Keynesian model with credit market imperfections and a cost channel of monetary policy. Bank capital increases incentives for banks to monitor borrowers, thereby raising the repayment probability, and excess capital generates benefits in terms of reduced regulatory scrutiny. Basel I-and Basel II-type regulatory regimes are defined, and the model is calibrated for a middle-income country. Simulations of a supply shock show that, depending on the elasticity that relates the repayment probability to the bank capital-loan ratio, the Basel II regime may be less procyclical than a Basel I regime.