We assess how a major, unconventional central bank intervention, Draghi's "whatever it takes" speech, affected lending conditions. Similar to other large interventions, it responded to adverse financial and macroeconomic developments that also influenced the supply and demand for credit. We...

We exploit the 2007-2009 financial crisis to analyze how risk relates to bank business models. Institutions with higher risk exposure had less capital, larger size, greater reliance on short-term market funding, and aggressive credit growth. Business models related to significantly reduced bank...

The architecture of supervision - how we define the allocation of supervisory powers to different policy institutions - can have implications for policy conduct and for the economic and financial environment in which these policies are implemented. Theoretically, an integrated structure for...

Following the introduction of the euro, the markets for large debt financing experienced a historical expansion. We investigate the financial factors behind the issuance of syndicated loans for an extensive sample of euro area non-financial corporations. For the first time we compare these...

This paper investigates the relationship between short-term interest rates and bank risk. Using a unique database that includes quarterly balance sheet information for listed banks operating in the European Union and the United States in the last decade, we find evidence that unusually low...

We analyze the impact of efficiency on bank risk. We also consider whether bank capital has an effect on this relationship. We model the inter-temporal relationships among efficiency, capital and risk for a large sample of commercial banks operating in the European Union. We find that reductions...

It has often been argued during the recent credit crisis that commercial banks' involvement in investment banking activities might have had an impact on the intensity of their underwriting standards. We turn to evidence from the period prior to the complete revocation of the Glass-Steagall Act...

While the 2007-2010 financial crisis has hit a variety of countries asymmetrically, the case of Spain is particularly illustrative: this country experienced a pronounced housing bubble partly funded via spectacular developments in its securitization markets leading to looser credit standards and...

We investigate the effect of securitization activity on banks’ lending standards using evidence from pricing behavior on the syndicated loan market. We find that banks more active at originating asset-backed securities are also more aggressive on their loan pricing practices. This suggests...

The response of major central banks to the global financial crisis has revived the debate around the interactions between monetary policy (MP) and bank stability. This technical paper sheds light, quantitatively, on the different mechanisms underlying the relationship between MP and bank...