We analyze the link between banking sector quality and sovereign risk in the whole European Union over 1999–2014. We employ four different indicators of sovereign risk (including market- and opinion-based assessments), a rich set of theoretically and empirically motivated banking sector...

This paper examines the spillover effects of sovereign rating news on European financial markets during the period 2007-2010. Our main finding is that sovereign rating downgrades have statistically and economically significant spillover effects both across countries and financial markets. The...

This paper applies long-memory techniques (both parametric and semi-parametric) to examine whether Brexit has led to any significant changes in the degree of persistence of the FTSE 100 Implied Volatility Index (IVI) and of the British pound’s implied volatilities (IVs) vis-à-vis the main...

This paper employs a stylized New Keynesian DSGE model for a monetary union to analyze whether cyclical inflation differentials can be explained by cross-country differences concerning the characteristics of financial markets. Our results suggest that empirically plausible degrees of...

The Netherlands has a unique tradition in which all major Dutch political parties provide CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis with highly detailed proposals for the tax benefit system in every national election. This information allows us to quantitatively measure the...

Economic downturns give rise to unexpected employment shocks that can reshape the distribution of population income, and hence produce a “middle-class squeeze”. However, there is limited empirical evidence testing the latter. This paper aims at testing the ‘middle-class squeeze' hypothesis...

We develop a new model of trade in which educational institutions drive comparative advantage and determine the distribution of human capital within and across countries. Our framework exploits a multiplicity of sectors and the continuous support of human capital choices to demonstrate that...

We set up a two-country, regional model of trade in financial services. Competitive firms in each country manufacture untraded consumer goods in an uncertain productive environment, borrowing funds from a bank in either the home or the foreign market. Duopolistic banks can choose their levels of...

Comparative quantitative research into the causes, responses to, and effects of banking crisis uses two series of crisis data: Reinhart and Rogoff (2009, 2010) and Laeven and Valencia (2013, and their predecessors). While these data sets provide broad coverage, the measures they code have...

This paper employs a price-based measure of integration, namely stock return differentials between ten emerging Asian economies and the US (as an indicator of global integration), as well as Japan and the Asian region (as two alternative indicators of regional integration), to test for mean...