While regulatory capital buffers are expected to be drawn to absorb losses and meet credit demand during crises, this paper shows that banks were unwilling to do so during the pandemic. To the contrary, banks engaged in forms of pro-cyclical behaviour to preserve capital ratios. By employing...

We analyse the effects of supranational versus national banking supervision on credit supply, and its interactions with monetary policy. For identification, we exploit: (i) a new, proprietary dataset based on 15 European credit registers; (ii) the institutional change leading to the...

This study analyses the policy measures taken in the euro area in response to the outbreak and the escalating diffusion of new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We focus on monetary, microprudential and macroprudential policies designed specifically to support bank lending conditions. For...

Using novel monthly data for 226 euro-area banks from 2007 to 2015, we investigate the determinants of changes in banks’ sovereign exposures and their effects during and after the euro crisis. First, the publicly owned, recently bailed out and less strongly capitalized banks reacted to...