One of the challenges of financial stability analysis and bank stress testing is how to establish scenarios with meaningful macro-financial linkages, i.e., taking into account spillover effects and other forms of contagion. We come up with an approach to simulate the potential impact of...

A framework to run system-wide, balance sheet data-based liquidity stress tests is presented. The liquidity framework includes three elements: (a) a module to simulate the impact of bank run scenarios; (b) a module to assess risks arising from maturity transformation and rollover risks,...

This paper presents a simple heuristic measure of tail risk, which is applied to individual bank stress tests and to public debt. Stress testing can be seen as a first order test of the level of potential negative outcomes in response to tail shocks. However, the results of stress testing can be...

The global financial crisis has placed the spotlight squarely on bank stress tests. Stress tests conducted in the lead-up to the crisis, including those by IMF staff, were not always able to identify the right risks and vulnerabilities. Since then, IMF staff has developed more robust stress...

The recent crisis has spurred the use of stress tests as a (crisis) management and early warning tool. However, a weakness is that they omit potential risks embedded in the banking groups™ geographical structures by assuming that capital and liquidity are available wherever they are needed...

Bank liquidity stress testing, which has become de rigueur following the costly lessons of the global financial crisis, remains underdeveloped compared to solvency stress testing. The ability to adequately identify, model and assess the impact of liquidity shocks, which are infrequent but can...

Cooperative banks are an important, and growing, part of many financial systems. This paper empirically analyzes the role of cooperative banks in financial stability. Contrary to some suggestions in the literature, we find that cooperative banks are more stable than commercial banks. This...

Motivated by the recent increase in domestic banks' holdings of domestic sovereign debt (i.e., home bias) in the European periphery, this paper analyzes implications of banks' home bias for the sovereign's debt sustainability. The main findings, based on a sample of advanced (AM) and emerging...

Globally, financial institutions have increased their holdings of domestic sovereign debt, tightening the linkage between the health of the financial system and the level of sovereign debt, or the “financial sector-sovereign nexus,” during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, the...

We examine the recent credit slowdown in emerging markets from three analytical angles. First, we find that, similar to past history, a credit boom preceded the current slowdown in many emerging markets, and argue that, going forward, a protracted period of sluggish growth is likely. Second, we...