Why should monetary policy 'lean against the wind'? Can't bank regulation perform its task alone? We model banks that choose both asset volatility and leverage, and identify how monetary policy transmits to bank risk. Subsequently, we introduce a regulator whose tool is a risk-based capital...

Recent policy discussion includes the introduction of diversification requirements for sovereign bond portfolios of European banks. In this paper, we evaluate the possible effects of these constraints on risk and diversification in the sovereign bond portfolios of the major European banks....

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 paper addresses the trade-off between additional loss-absorbing capacity and potentially higher bank risk-taking associated with the introduction of the Basel III Leverage Ratio. This is addressed in both a theoretical and empirical setting. Using a theoretical micro model, we show that a...

The European banking industry joined forces to achieve a fully integrated market for retail payment services in the euro area: The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Against this background, the present paper examines the fundamental relationship between retail payment business and overall bank...

We study whether a pre-existing link between bank and sovereign credit risk biased euro area banks' sovereign debt portfolio choices during 2011Q4 and 2012Q1 - a period of exceptional increases in their domestic sovereign bond holdings. We find that banks whose creditworthiness is linked to that...

This paper studies the impact of cyclical systemic risk on future bank profitability for a large representative panel of EU banks between 2005 and 2017. Using linear local projections we show that high current levels of cyclical systemic risk predict large drops in the average bank-level return...

We show that negative monetary policy rates induce systemic banks to reach-for-yield. For identification, we exploit the introduction of negative deposit rates by the European Central Bank in June 2014 and a novel securities register for the 26 largest euro area banking groups. Banks with more...

How far should capital requirements be raised in order to ensure a strong and resilient banking system without imposing undue costs on the real economy? Capital requirement increases make banks safer and are beneficial in the long run but also entail transition costs because their imposition...

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...