We study determinants of sovereign portfolios of Spanish banks over a long time-span, starting in 2008. Our findings challenge the view that banks engaged in moral hazard strategies to exploit the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures. In particular, we show that being a weakly capitalized...

We propose a simple model that captures the link between bank and sovereign credit risk. It allows evaluating policy options to address this 'doom loop' in which the government may need to raise debt to recapitalise banks, and an increase in government debt raises sovereign risk and in turn...