This paper investigates the market pricing of subprime mortgage risk on the basis of data forthe ABX.HE family of indices, which have become a key barometer of mortgage marketconditions during the recent financial crisis. After an introduction into ABX index mechanicsand a discussion of...

We estimate time-varying expected excess returns on the US stock market from 1983to 2008 using a model that jointly captures the arbitrage-free dynamics of stockreturns and nominal bond yields. The model nests the class of affine term structure (ofinterest rates) models. Stock returns and bond...

This paper investigates the potential impact of the growing influence of the opinions of credit rating agencies (CRAs) on market dynamics. This impact can be seen as a consequence of the information content of the ratings themselves or indirectly as a consequence of the "hardwiring" of ratings...

How do financial markets price new information? This paper analyzes price setting atthe intersection of private and public information, by testing whether and how thereaction of financial markets to public signals depends on the relative importance ofprivate information in agents’ information...

This study focuses on longer term influences and provides some potential explanations in ECU markets which were regarder by some financial market participants as puzzles.

In this paper, we present a set of specific measures to quantify the state and evolution of financial integration in the euro area. Five key markets are considered, namely the money, corporate bond, government bond, credit and equity markets. Building upon the law of one price, we developed two...

This paper explores implications of climate change for fiscal policy by assessing theimpact of large scale extreme weather events on changes in public budgets. We applyalternative measures for large scale extreme weather events and conclude that thebudgetary impact of such events ranges between...

This paper contributes to the literature on the properties of money and creditindicators for detecting asset price misalignments. After a review of the evidence inthe literature on this issue, the paper discusses the approaches that can be consideredto detect asset price busts. Considering a...

A striking and unexpected feature of the financial crisis has been the sharpappreciation of the US dollar against virtually all currencies globally. The paper findsthat negative US-specific macroeconomic shocks during the crisis have triggered asignificant strengthening of the US dollar, rather...

Liquidity provision through its repo auctions has been one of the main instrumentsof the European Central Bank (ECB) to address the recent tensions infinancial markets since summer 2007. In this paper, we analyse banks’ biddingbehaviour in the ECB’s main refinancing operations (MROs) during...