If monetary policy is to aim also at financial stability, how would it change? To analyze this question, this paper develops a general-form, axiomatic framework. Financial stability objectives are shown to make a monetary authority more aggressive. By that we mean that in reaction to negative...

This paper models a financial sector in which there is a feedback between individual bank risk and aggregate funding market problems. Greater individual risk taking worsens adverse selection problems on the market. But adverse selection premia on that market push up bank risk taking, leading to...

This paper shows that a rate hike has countervailing effects on banks' risk appetite. It reduces risk when the debt burden of the banking sector is modest. We model a regulator whose trade-off between bank risk and credit supply is derived from a welfare function. We show that the regulator...

This paper analyzes the conditions under which a financial institution is systemically important. Measuring the level of systemic importance of financial institutions, we find that size is a leading determinant confirming the usual 'Too Big To Fail' argument. Nevertheless, the relation is...

When does the general public lose trust in banks? We provide empirical evidence using responses by Dutch survey participants to eight hypothetical scenarios. We find that members of the general public care strongly about executive compensation. Negative media reports, falling stock prices, and...

Do tightenings of bank lending standards permanently reduce bank lending? We construct a measure of a bank's level of lending standards using micro-data from the sample of banks participating in the Eurosystem Bank Lending Survey in The Netherlands and show that this level measure affects...

This paper revisits the credit spread puzzle in bank CDS spreads from the perspective of information contagion. The puzzle, rst detected in corporate bonds, consists of two stylized facts: Structural determinants of credit risk not only have low explanatory power but also fail to capture a...

Sovereign-bank feedback loops have been at the heart of the euro area crisis and many previous debt crises. We regress a market measure of interdependency – the correlation between sovereign and bank credit default swaps (CDS) – against various fundamental indicators of interlinkages and...

Drawdowns on credit commitments by firms reduce a bank's regulatory capital ratio. Using the Austrian Credit Register, we provide novel evidence that during the 2008-09 financial crisis, capital-constrained banks managed this concern by substantially cutting partly or fully unused credit...

Following the 2008 financial crisis, policy makers considered regulations that restrict banks' activities which were motivated by concerns that banks use central bank borrowing, government guarantees, or subsidies to fund securities trading instead of lending to the real economy. Using a global...