We investigate the effects of credit ratings-contingent financial regulation on foreign bank lending behavior. We examine the sensitivity of international bank flows to debtor countries’ sovereign credit rating changes before and after the implementation of the Basel 2 risk-based capital...

On 3 July 2015, SUERF organized its sixth joint conference with the Bank of Finland in Helsinki on the subject of liquidity and market efficiency. The one-day program consisted of an opening speech, six presentations, including three keynotes, and a lunchtime address. The present SUERF Study...

We study whether the mechanism design in the central bank liquidity auctions matters for the interbank money market interest rate levels and volatility. Furthermore, we compare different mechanisms to sell liquidity in terms of revenue, efficiency and auction stage interest rate levels and...

This paper operationalizes early theoretical contributions of Hyman Minsky and applies these in the context of economic sectors and nations. Following the view of boom-bust asset cycles, depicted by the endogenous build-up of risks and their abrupt unraveling, Minsky highlighted the relationship...

This paper provides an exposition of the nature, means of estimation and uses of Financial Conditions Indexes (FCIs) and their relationship to the more common Monetary Conditions Indexes (MCIs) that are used by market analysts, international organisations and central banks. Using panel datasets...

The current financial crisis, which has lasted almost one and a half years, is the 19th such crisis in the post-war period in advanced economies. Recent literature classifies the Nordic crises in Norway, Sweden and Finland in late 1980's and early 1990’s among the Big Five crises that have...

This paper tests the hypothesis that the more fragile a banking system is, the more likely it is to experience problems when an unexpected shock hits. The empirical framework where this test is conducted is a reduced form model, where macroeconomic factors explain banks’ loan losses. The...

The macroeconomic determinants of banking sector distresses in the Nordic countries, Belgium, Ger-many, Greece, Spain and the UK are analysed using an econometric model estimated on panel data from partly the early 1980s to 2002. The dependent variable is the ratio of banks’ loan losses to...

This paper tests for the presence of a credit channel (particularly a bank-lending sub-channel) for monetary policy in the housing market. We argue that the importance of this channel for investment in residential housing is highly dependent on the structural features, and particularly the...