This paper studies the impact of major ECB monetary policy announcements on the portfolio allocation of euro area fund investors, using daily data between 2012 and mid-2016, a period that includes a variety of unconventional measures. We distinguish between active portfolio reallocation, driven...

We study the impact of a liquidity shock affecting investment funds on the financing conditions of firms. The abrupt liquidity needs of investment funds, triggered by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, prompted a retrenchment from bond purchases of firms and a withdrawal of short term funds...

Investment funds hold a disproportionately larger fraction of domestic relative to foreign stocks. Stock market development and familiarity (language and distance) are considered key determinants for home bias. The literature neglects however that investors often invest in foreign funds...

The assets under management of investment funds have soared in recent years, triggering a debate on their possible implications for financial stability. We contribute to this debate assessing the asset price impact of fire sales in a novel partial equilibrium model of euro area funds and banks...

The investment fund sector has expanded dramatically since the crisis of 2008-2009. As the sector grows, so do the implications of its risk-taking for the wider financial system and real economy. This paper provides empirical evidence for the existence of widespread risk-taking incentives in the...

We study euro area investors' portfolio adjustment since the Brexit referendum in terms of securities issued in the UK or denominated in pound sterling, in the context of heightened policy uncertainty surrounding the exit process of the UK from the EU. Our sector-level analysis "looks-through"...

Funds with an environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) mandate have been growing rapidly in recent years and received inflows also during periods of market turmoil, such as March 2020, in contrast to their non-ESG peers. This paper investigates whether investors in ESG funds react...

This paper develops a framework for the short-term modelling of market risk and shock propagation in the investment funds sector, including bi-layer contagion effects through funds' cross-holdings and overlapping exposures. Our work tackles in particular climate risk, with a first-of-its-kind...

Are central bank tools effective in reaching non-banks with no access to the lender-of-last-resort facilities? Using runs on mutual funds in March 2020 as a laboratory, we show that, following the announcement of large-scale purchases, funds with higher ex ante shares of assets eligible for...

This paper presents a model for stress testing investment funds, based on a broad worldwide sample of primary open-end equity and bond funds. First, we employ a Bayesian technique to project the impact of macro-financial scenarios on country-level portfolio flows worldwide that are constructed...