In this paper we study how differences in the quality of countries' institutions affect the impact of natural hazards in these countries. To do so, we first build a new data set that allows us to adequately control for countries' development and geological characteristics and, importantly,...

This paper evaluates whether the level of public corruption influences COVID-19 case fatality rates. Using cross-section data, including 64 countries and multiple regression techniques, we find that the level of corruption is positively and significantly associated with COVID-19 human costs....

This paper documents that surprise election outcomes - measured as deviations between realised vote shares and expected vote shares based on a newly constructed dataset of opinion polls and party and candidate vote shares close to election day - are causing non-negligible short-term contractions...

We investigate the relationship between oil prices and stock markets of selected oil importers and oil exporters at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide evidence in favour of energy contagion, in term of significantly higher correlations between oil and stock markets returns during...

This paper unveils a new resource for macroeconomic research: a long-run dataset covering disaggregated bank credit for 17 advanced economies since 1870. The new data show that the share of mortgages on banks’ balance sheets doubled in the course of the 20th century, driven by a sharp rise of...

The current paper broadens the understanding of the role played by uncertainty in the context of macroeconomic fluctuations. It focuses on the implications of uncertainty shocks for indicators that tend to precede financial crises. In an empirical analysis we show for a set of four euro area...

We develop a dynamic computational network model of the banking system where fire sales provide the amplification mechanism of financial shocks. Each period a finite number of banks offers a large, but finite, number of loans to households. Banks with excess liquidity also offer loans to other...

This paper analyses lending behaviour and economic fluctuations in the Italian banking system as a whole and in the case of the Cooperative Credit Banks (CCBs) using time series data from 2000Q1 to 2022Q4. The specified models include the main determinants of loans to households and firms. In...

We examine the supply-side characteristics - unskilled labor, imported input intensity, dependence on inputs from China, production complexity - that determine different potential vulnerabilities of traded products to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on monthly exports at the product level by all...