The crisis has shown that banks that are too big to fail are at the core of the international financial system. These institutions are thus at the centre of a powerful wave of re-regulation of the banking system. Overall, the proposals developed to strengthen the capacity of big banks to weather...

The literature is unanimous in highlighting that banking crises have a negative impact on GDP, usually more pronounced in developing economies. The magnitude of the losses is more controversial: the quantitative results of studies on the repercussions of banking crises on economic activity, in...

This paper explores the implications of systemic risk in Credit Structured Finance (CSF). Risk measurement issues loomed large during the 2007-08 financial crisis, as the massive, unprecedented number of downgrades of AAA senior bond tranches inflicted severe losses on banks, calling into...

When do financial markets help in predicting economic activity? With incomplete markets, the link between financial and real economy is state-dependent and financial indicators may turn out to be useful particularly in forecasting "tail" macroeconomic events. We examine this conjecture by...

In this paper we investigate the main features of the Italian financial cycle, extracted by means of a structural trend-cycle decomposition of the credit-to-GDP ratio, using annual observations from 1861 to 2011. In order to draw conclusions based on solid historical data, we provide a thorough...

This paper develops a methodology, based on Furfine (1999), for identifying unsecured interbank money market loans from the transaction data of the most important euro payment processing system TARGET2, for maturities ranging from one day (overnight) up to three months. The implementation has...

More than three years since the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area the banking systems of several countries remain exposed to the vagaries of government bond markets. The paper analyzes the different channels through which sovereign risk affects banking risk (and vice versa),...

The financial crisis that began in 2007 has revealed a need for a new supervisory and regulatory approach aimed at strengthening the system and containing the risk of future financial and economic disruptions. Three ingredients are needed to ensure financial stability: robust analysis, better...

Contingent capital � any debt instrument that converts into equity when a predefined event occurs � has received increasing attention as a viable tool for allowing banks to raise capital when needed at relatively more affordable prices than common equity. While the debate has focused...

This paper proposes a policy framework for intercepting, monitoring and containing the unintended harmful effects of financial innovation. The current approach, adopted by several authorities, makes extensive use of the tools of transparency and disclosure, mainly for consumer protection. It has...