This paper studies the bank-sovereign link in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium set-up with strategic default on public debt. Heterogeneous banks give rise to an interbank market where government bonds are used as collateral. A default penalty arises from a breakdown of interbank...

In the debate on global imbalances, the euro area countries did not receive much attention so far. While the current account is on balance for the entire area, divergences between individual member states have increased since the introduction of the common currency. In this paper, the imbalances...

This paper provides new evidence on the contribution of local banking to local economic growth (i.e. at county level - the Italian "province") in Italy. A comprehensive dataset is used, which includes control variables for social capital and human capital as well as indicators of the quality of...

We use household survey data from Hungary to analyse the determinants of foreign currency (FX) borrowing. We do not find evidence that Hungarian FX borrowers are better educated, wealthier or more risk-loving than their peers. In fact, FX borrowing is a common phenomenon driven mostly by...

The Greek government budget situation plays a central role in the debt crisis in the euro area. The debt to GDP ratio is above 150 percent, while the deficit to GDP ratio exceeds 10 percent. To re-establish the Maastricht criteria, respectively, strong consolidation measures need to be...

We use household survey data from Hungary to analyse the determinants of foreign currency (FX) borrowing. We do not find evidence that Hungarian FX borrowers are better educated, wealthier or more risk-loving than their peers. In fact, FX borrowing is a common phenomenon driven mostly by...

The paper analyses the global spillovers of the Federal Reserve's unconventional monetary policy measures. First, we find that Fed measures in the early phase of the crisis (QE1), but not since 2010 (QE2), were highly effective in lowering sovereign yields and raising equity markets in the US...

This paper develops a two-country DSGE model for a monetary union in which each country is populated by two types of households - savers and borrowers - and two types of production sectors - a consumption goods sector and a housing sector. Households trade nominal private debt in equilibrium,...

The appropriate design of monetary policy in integrated financial markets is one of the most challenging areas for central banks. One hot topic is whether the rise in liquidity in recent years has contributed to the formation of price bubbles in asset markets. If strong linkages exist, the...