With a view to establishing a Capital Markets Union (CMU), efforts to integrate (private) capital markets and private risk-sharing in the European Union are underway. However, the single (capital) market will be burdened by a perennial potential threat to sovereign bond market stability in the...

A Capital Markets Union (CMU) is the great hope of European policymakers. The plan for a CMU tries to reduce the reliance of European investors on banks and build up a market-based risk-sharing channel between member states. Our empirical analysis raises doubts that this can be achieved through...

After a period of deepening financial integration, the financial crisis triggered a fragmentation of Europe’s capital markets along national lines. Financial integration was prone to sudden stops and capital reversals because cross-border capital flows predominantly consisted of short-term...

Europe’s financial landscape has substantial institutional variety. This reflects different societal responses to (or preferences with regard to) trade-offs. For monetary policy, it implies a challenging environment, particularly in times of financial crises. Using a non-linear VAR-model we...

Compared to the U.S., the euro area has been underperforming in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). This holds especially true for peripheral euro area economies. Whereas the U.S. is characterised by a financial system dominated by arms’ length (capital-market oriented) interaction...

The European private equity market has expanded meaningfully over the past few decades, with leveraged buyouts having averaged more than 50 billion euros per year in 2010–2016. This paper examines investment flows within Europe, as well as between Europe and the rest of the world at two...

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC: 2008–2009) and the Euro Sovereign Crisis (ESC: 2010–2012) seem a process of creative destruction for the European Union (EU). The huge damage provoked by the GFC and ESC was, in fact, followed by important institutional building steps as the Banking Union...