We study the effects of technological change on financial intermediation, distinguishing between innovations in information (data collection and processing) and communication (relationships and distribution). Both follow historic trends towards an increased use of hard information and less...

This paper studies the relationship between the business cycle and financial intermediation in the euro area. We establish stylized facts and study their stability during the global financial crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis. Long-term interest rates have been exceptionally high and...

This paper investigates the effects of interbank rate uncertainty on lending rates to euro area firms. We introduce a novel measure of interbank rate uncertainty, computed as the cross-sectional dispersion in interbank market rates on overnight unsecured loans. Using proprietary bank-level data,...

This paper shows that the EMU has not affected historical characteristics of member countries' business cycles and their cross-correlations. Member countries which had similar levels of GDP per-capita in the seventies have also experienced similar business cycles since then and no significant...

This paper shows that the explanation of the decline in the volatility of GDP growth since the mid-eighties is not the decline in the volatility of exogenous shocks but rather a change in their propagation mechanism.