The investment of the ECB reserves in US dollars and yen involves an annual performance assessment of portfolio managers, located in the Eurosystem�s national central banks. Employing new data on individual portfolios during 2002-2009, we study this peculiar tournament and show the...

We assess the impact of oil shocks on euro-area macroeconomic variables by estimating a new-Keynesian small open economy model with Bayesian methods. Oil price is determined according to supply and demand conditions in the world oil market. We find that the impact of an increase in the price of...

The far-reaching regulatory activity in which the financial sector has been involved in recent years has been attracting increased attention to the expected costs and benefits of such regulation; measures undertaken in response to the financial crisis have made these issues even more topical....

After a decade of deep transformation, which influenced both lending policies and risk management, Italy�s mutual banks are faced with the upcoming Basel III reform. Economic trends continue to exert pressure on the traditional bank business model. The entry into force of Basel III provides...

In December 2010 the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published a set of new regulations for banks in response to the financial crisis. This paper aims at evaluating the possible effects of the new framework on banks� available regulatory capital and risk-weighted assets and assessing...