I analyze the optimal design of banking supervision in the presence of cross-border lending. Cross-border lending could imply that an individual bank failure in one country could trigger negative spillover effects in another country. Such cross-border contagion effects could turn out to be...

Multi-agency financial stability committees (FSCs) have grown dramatically since the global financial crisis. However, most cannot direct actions or recommend to other agencies that they take actions, and most would influence policy actions only through convening and discussing risks. We...

On the occasion of related proposals by the European Commission and the Eurogroup, this paper proposes to entrust the ESM with the hosting of the ESRB in the medium term. The novel proposal aims at strengthening the macro-prudential expertise of the ESM and at enhancing the independence of the...

We analyze the impact of the announcement of the banking union on stock market returns of euro area banks against the backdrop of three commonly held views of the banking union. We document positive individual abnormal returns for most banks. Abnormal returns are large and positive on average,...

We develop a macroeconomic portfolio stress test that is specifically geared towards small and medium-sized banks. We combine a credit risk stress test which simulates credit impairments via a CreditMetrics type multi-factor portfolio model with an income stress test in the form of dynamic panel...

We develop an operational model of information contagion and show how it may be integrated into a mainstream, top-down, stress-testing framework to quantify systemic risk. The key transmission mechanism is a two-way interaction between the beliefs of secondary market investors and the...

The severity and depth of the recent financial crisis hit many by surprise. Despite warning signs, the financial system seems to have been unable to aggregate existing information. As the events of Fall 2008 showed, many investors were caught off guard by the large number of banks collapsing...

We model a banking union of two countries whose banking sectors differ in their average probability of failure and externalities between the two countries arise from cross-border bank ownership. The two countries face (i) a regulatory (super- visory) decision of which banks are to be shut down...