We present a simple theory of business-cycle movements of option prices and volumes. This theory relies on time-varying heterogeneity between agents in their demand for insurance against aggregate risk. Formally, we build an infinite-horizon model where agents face an aggregate risk, but also...

We construct credit risk indicators for euro area banks and non-financial corporations. These are the average spreads on the yield of euro area private sector bonds relative to the yield on German federal government securities of matched maturities. The indicators are also constructed at the...

This paper incorporates banks as well as frictions in the market for bank capital into a standard New Keynesian model and considers the positive and normative implications of various financial shocks. It shows that the frictions matter significantly for the effects of the shocks and the...

The purpose of this paper is to propose discrete-time term structure models where the historical dynamics of the factor (xt) is given, in the univariate case, by a Gaussian AR(p) process, and, in the multivariate case, by a Gaussian n-dimensional VAR(p) process. The factor (xt) is considered as...

We consider the problems of derivative pricing and inference when the stochastic discount factor has an exponential-affine form and the geometric return of the underlying asset has a dynamics characterized by a mixture of conditionally Normal processes. We consider both the static case in which...

We study the liquidity allocation among European banks around the Lehman Brothers’ insolvency using a novel dataset of all interbank loans settled via the Eurosystem’s payment system TARGET2. Following the Lehman insolvency, lenders in the overnight segment become sensitive to counterparty...

Small and medium-sized enterprises are a centrepiece of Europe's economy. Due to their limited size and their generally lower creditworthiness, their access to financial market instruments is more limited than for large enterprises, which benefit from more elaborate Treasury operations,...

In response to the very large number of quantitative indicators that have been put forward to measure the level of systemic risk since the start of the subprime crisis, the paper surveys the different indicators available in the economic and financial literature. It distinguishes between (i)...