Why do residential mortgages carry a fixed or an adjustable interest rate? To answer this question we study unique data from 103 banks belonging to 73 different banking groups across twelve countries in the euro area. To explain the large cross-country and time variation observed, we distinguish...

We estimate the shoe-leather costs of inflation in the euro area using monetary data adjusted for holdings of euro banknotes abroad. While we find evidence of marginally negative shoe-leather costs for very low levels of the nominal interest rate, our estimates suggest that the shoe-leather...

Sovereign debt crisis, domestic banks in fiscally stressed countries were considerably more likely than foreign banks to increase their holdings of domestic sovereign bonds in months with relatively high domestic sovereign bond issuance. This effect is stronger for state‐owned banks and for...

We use a unique dataset of ratings for euro area corporate loans from commercial banks’ internal rating-based (IRBs) systems and central banks’ in-house credit assessment systems (ICASs) to investigate whether banks’ IRB ratings underestimate the credit risk of their corporate loan...

This paper tests whether the proposition that globalisation has led to greater sensitivity of domestic inflation to the global output gap (the quot;global output gap hypothesisquot;) holds for the euro area. The empirical analysis uses quarterly data over the period 1979-2003. Measures of the...

This paper investigates possible non-linearities in the dynamics of the euro area demand for the narrow aggregate M1. A long-run money demand relationship is firstly estimated over a sample period covering the last three decades. While the parameters of the relationship are jointly stable, there...

We assess the impact on bank bond holdings of regulatory changes in the requirements for bail-inable liabilities designed to facilitate an orderly resolution process, while reducing taxpayers-funded bailouts. Analyzing confidential data on securities holdings by banks, we document that the...

Do negative policy rates hinder banks' transmission of monetary policy? To answer this question, we examine the behaviour of Italian mortgage lenders using a novel loan-level dataset. When policy rates turn negative, banks with higher ratios of retail overnight deposits to total assets charge...