Abstract: The European sovereign debt crisis is characterized by the simultaneous surge in borrowing costs in the GIPS countries after 2008. We present a theory, which can account for the behavior of sovereign bond spreads in Southern Europe between 1998 and 2012. Our key theoretical argument is...

In 1993, Czechoslovakia experienced a two-fold break-up: On January 1st, the country disintegrated as a political union, while preserving an economic and monetary union. Then, the Czech-Slovak monetary union collapsed on February 8th. We analyze the economic background of the two break-ups, and...

What are the macroeconomic implications of changes in sovereign risk premia? In this paper, I use a novel identification strategy coupled with a new dataset for the Euro Area to answer this question. I show that exogenous innovations in sovereign risk premia were an important driver of the...

This paper attempts to answer the question whether the threat of systemic risk in banking exists only on a national or on a European level. Following De Nicolo and Kwast (2001), mean rolling-window correlations between bank stock returns are used as a measure for interdependencies among European...

This paper attempts to assess the Europe-wide systemic risk in banking. We employ a bivariate GARCH model to estimate conditional correlations between European bank stock indices. These correlations are used as an indication for the interdependencies amongst the banking business in Europe and...

This paper presents a stylized model of international trade and asset price bubbles. Its central insight is that bubbles tend to appear and expand in countries where productivity is low relative to the rest of the world. These bubbles absorb local savings, eliminating inefficient investments and...

For creditor countries on the periphery of the dollar standard such as China with current account surpluses, foreign mercantile pressure to appreciate their currencies and become more flexible is misplaced. Just the expectation of variable exchange appreciation seriously disrupts the natural...

The replacement of national currencies by a common currency in the EMU causes a monetary externality if the European Central Bank is inclined to monetize part of outstanding government debt in the community.High government debt in one part of the EU then increases the common inflation rate.We...

We analyse the proposed "Stability Pact" for countries joining a European Monetary Union (EMU). In an EMU shortsighted governments fail to fully internalise the inflationary consequences of their debt policies. This results in excessive debt accumulation. Therefore, while in the absence of EMU...

Collective action clauses (CACs) are provisions specifying that a supermajority of bondholders can change the terms of a bond. We study how CACs determine governments' fiscal incentives, sovereign bond prices and default probabilities in environments with and without contingent debt and IMF...