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 portfolios...

At the onset of the Covid-19 outbreak, central banks and supervisors introduced dividend restrictions as a new policy instrument aimed at supporting lending to the real economy and strengthening banks' capacity to absorb losses. In this paper we estimate the impact of the ECB's dividend...

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...

In this paper, we survey the nascent literature on the transmission of negative policy rates. We discuss the theory of how the transmission depends on bank balance sheets, and how this changes once policy rates become negative. We review the growing evidence that negative policy rates are...

Political science research has established that trust in institutions, including central banks, is shaped by socio-economic and demographic factors, as well as by the assessment of institutional features and by slow-moving components such as culture. However, the role of cognitive processes has...

We analyze the pledging behavior of Euro area banks during the introduction of the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR). The LCR considers only a subset of central bank eligible assets and thereby offers banks an arbitrage opportunity to improve their regulatory ratio by altering their collateral...

This paper presents the blueprint of a new ECB multi-country model. The version documented in the following pages is estimated on euro area data. As a prelude to the country models, this version is meant to enhance the understanding of the main model mechanisms, enlarge the suite of area wide...

We explain the role of the Phillips Curve in the analysis of the economic outlook and the formulation of monetary policy at the ECB. First, revisiting the structural Phillips Curve, we highlight the challenges in recovering structural parameters from reduced-form estimates and relate the...

As the role of central banks expanded, demand for public scrutiny of their actions increased. This paper investigates whether parliamentary hearings, the main tool to hold central banks accountable, are fit for this purpose. Using text analysis, it detects the topics and sentiments in...