2 While a traditional textbook would focus on trade as the main channel of monetary policy spillovers, the literature suggests that financial channels – through exchange rates and capital flows – are more important, especially when departing from a stylised world with frictionless financial markets.
Among others, those questions refer to financial developments leading up to the crisis, chains of contagion throughout the crisis, as well as consequences of policy interventions taken. All of them have in common that they aim at a better understanding of the financial sector and are therefore closely related to its ever-changing economic role as an intermediary.