We develop a methodology to identify and rank systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Our approach is consistent with that followed by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) but, unlike the latter, it is free of judgment and it is based entirely on publicly available data, thus...

The CFS survey covers individual situations of banks and other companies of the financial sector during the financial crisis. This provides a rare possibility to analyze appraisals, expectations and forecast errors of the core sector of the recent turmoil. Following standard ways of aggregating...

Securitization is a financial innovation that experiences a boom-bust cycle, as many other innovations before. This paper analyzes possible reasons for the breakdown of primary and secondary securitization markets, and argues that misaligned incentives along the value chain are the primary cause...

This paper is a draft for the chapter German banks and banking structure of the forthcoming book The German financial system edited by J.P. Krahnen and R.H. Schmidt (Oxford University Press). As such, the paper starts out with a description of past and present structural features of the German...

When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a...