This paper reviews the factors that will determine the shape of financial markets under EMU. It argues that financial markets will not be unified by the introduction of the euro. National central banks have a vested interest in preserving local idiosyncracies (e.g. the Wechsels in Germany) and...

The euro crisis was fueled by the diabolic loop between sovereign risk and bank risk, coupled with cross-border flight-to-safety capital flows. European Safe Bonds (ESBies), a union-wide safe asset without joint liability, would help to resolve these problems. We make three contributions. First,...

Using novel monthly data for 226 euro-area banks from 2007 to 2015, we investigate the determinants of changes in banks' sovereign exposures and their effects during and after the crisis. First, public, bailed out and poorly capitalized banks responded to sovereign stress by purchasing domestic...

The single most important policy-induced innovation in the international financial system since the collapse of the Bretton-Woods regime is the institution of the European Monetary Union. This paper provides an account of how the process of financial integration has promoted financial...

This paper explores the domestic and international effects of an increase in observed interest rates (conventional monetary policy) and expected interest rates (forward guidance). We find significant spillovers to a broad range of countries when both are subject to a tightening shock: Output...

We use a factor model and elastic net shrinkage to model a high-dimensional network of European CDS spreads. Our empirical approach allows us to assess the joint transmission of bank and sovereign risk to the non-financial corporate sector. Our findings identify a sectoral clustering in the CDS...