The Italian sovereign bond market experienced considerable disruption in May 2018 and subsequent months amid concerns about the fi scal implications of political developments in Italy. This episode is used to examine relationships among the euro area bond markets some six years after the euro...

At the height of the European sovereign debt crisis, the European Central Bank decided to purchase distressed European government bonds. Even worse, and more importantly, the ECB is providing direct support of several hundred billions of euros to troubled banks via its normal monetary policy...

The sharp widening of yield spreads among EMU sovereign bonds in the course of the economic crisis and concerns that some EMU member countries would encounter difficulties in rolling their existing debt and funding new budget deficits have revived proposals for a common bond issuance by EMU...