We document the twin crisis that affected Spain in the mid-1860s. First, we trace back its origins to the international crisis of 1864-66. Next, we describe the particular banking sector of Spain, characterized by the coexistence of the Bank of Spain with multiple local banks of issue. We...

We document the twin crisis that affected Spain in the mid-1860s. First, we trace back its origins to the international crisis of 1864-66. Next, we describe the particular banking sector of Spain, characterized by the coexistence of the Bank of Spain with multiple local banks of issue. We...

We study the functioning of secured and unsecured inter-bank markets in the presence of credit risk. The model generates empirical predictions that are in line with developments during the 2007-2009 financial crises. Interest rates decouple across secured and unsecured markets following an...

This paper develops a framework for assessing systemic risks and for predicting (out-of-sample) systemic events, i.e. periods of extreme financial instability with potential real costs. We test the ability of a wide range of “stand alone” and composite indicators in predicting systemic...

We study European banks’ demand for short-term funds (liquidity) during the summer 2007 subprime market crisis. We use bidding data from the European Central Bank’s auctions for one-week loans, their main channel of monetary policy implementation. Our analysis provides a high-frequency,...

The paper uses the Self-Organizing Map for mapping the state of financial stability and visualizing the sources of systemic risks as well as for predicting systemic financial crises. The Self-Organizing Financial Stability Map (SOFSM) enables a two-dimensional representation of a...

The world has been struck by a mutating systemic financial crisis that is unprecedented in terms of financial losses and fiscal costs, geographic reach, and speed and synchronisation. The crisis from August 2007 to date can be divided into three main phases: the financial turmoil from August...

We construct and explore a new quarterly dataset covering crisis episodes in 40 developed countries over 1970–2010. First, we examine stylized facts of banking, debt, and currency crises. Banking turmoil was most frequent in developed economies. Using panel vector autoregression, we confirm...

We search for early warning indicators that could indicate important risks in developed economies. We therefore examine which indicators are most useful in explaining costly macroeconomic developments following the occurrence of economic crises in EU and OECD countries between 1970 and 2010. To...

This paper introduces a new loss function and Usefulness measure for evaluating early warning systems (EWSs) that incorporate policymakers' preferences between issuing false alarms and missing crises, as well as individual observations. The novelty derives from three enhancements: i) accounting...