This paper provides a means of estimating how ‘Solvency II' regulations — introduced in the European Union in January 2016 — might affect UK life insurers' incentives to hold different types of financial assets, and how these asset holdings are likely to vary in the face of hypothetical...

We present a model for assessing how the UK's system of market-based finance — an increasingly important source of credit to the real economy since the financial crisis — might behave under stress. The core of this model is a set of representative agents, which correspond to key sectors of...

We investigate the impact that the publication of the Bank of England's Financial Stability Report (FSR) has on the stock returns and credit default swap spreads of UK financial institutions. Examining a sample of 73 UK-listed banks and other financial institutions, we find that publication of...

We study the impact of common asset holdings across different financial sectors on financial stability. In particular, we model indirect contagion via fire sales across UK banks and non-banks. Fire sales are triggered by different responses to a financial shock: banks and non unit-linked...

We study investor trading behaviour and yield patterns in the UK government bond market during the recent Covid crisis. We show that the yield spike in mid-March 2020 was accompanied by heavy selling of gilts by UK-based insurance companies and pension funds (ICPFs), which we argue was an...

We explore the role of ‘dollar shortage' shocks and central bank swap lines in a two-country New Keynesian model with financial frictions. Domestic banks issue both domestic and foreign currency debt and lend in domestic currency. Foreign currency-specific funding shocks, which are amplified...

This paper examines the channels via which climate change and policies to mitigate it could affect a central bank's ability to meet its monetary and financial stability objectives. We argue that two types of risks are particularly relevant for central banks. First, a weather-related natural...

Quantitative easing (QE) has become a key component of the monetary policy toolkit since the global financial crisis. However substantial uncertainty remains about the impact of QE on market liquidity. Identifying the impact is particularly challenging due to the potential for reverse causality,...

In this paper we first compare house price cycles in advanced and emerging economies using a new quarterly house price data set covering the period 1990-2012. We find that house prices in emerging economies grow faster, are more volatile, less persistent and less synchronised across countries...

The contractual approach proposes the introduction of clauses in sovereign debt contracts to address a number of inefficiencies in sovereign debt markets. Two of its central innovations are collective action clauses and seniority clauses. This paper analyses these two clauses when: (1) repayment...