This article narrates Ireland’s recent odyssey from the pride and envy of Europe to kneeling supplicant through the eyes of an econometric model of the government bond market. The exercise suggests that, in essence, two developments triggered and propelled Ireland’s drift towards sovereign...

The founders of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) acted "In the conviction that only a concerted action … offers the chance to achieve a performance which corresponds to the creative forces of its members". This sentence is still anchored in the treaty of the Community, but it...

Every financial crisis brings in its wake demands for more information; the latest one is no exception. Because, in deceptively tranquil times, it is well-nigh impossible to foster the consensus necessary to improve data availability, such a window of opportunity must not be missed. To be sure,...

This paper provides an overview of bank funding trends in the euro area following the 2007-09 global financial crisis and the euro area crisis. It shows that funding has become segmented along national borders and that secured instruments are much more prevalent than previously. Rising debt...

The global financial crisis has shaken the foundations of the deceptively comfortable pre-crisis central banking world. Central banks face a threefold challenge: economic, intellectual and institutional. This essay puts forward a compass to help central banks sail in the largely uncharted waters...

This paper is one of the first to investigate the determinants of bond issuance by European banks. We use a unique database of around 50,000 bonds issued by 63 banks from 14 European countries, allowing us to differentiate between different types of long-term debt securities. By investigating at...