This paper studies the long-run evolution of bank risk and its links to the macroeconomy. Using data for 17 advanced economies, we show that the riskiness of bank assets declined materially between 1870 and 2016. But even though bank assets have become safer, the losses on these assets are...

We study the impact of the COVID-19 shock on the portfolio exposures of euro area investors. The analysis "looks-through" holdings of investment fund shares to first gauge euro area investors' full exposures to global debt securities and listed shares by sector at end-2019 and to subsequently...

We study euro area investors' portfolio adjustment since the Brexit referendum in terms of securities issued in the UK or denominated in pound sterling, in the context of heightened policy uncertainty surrounding the exit process of the UK from the EU. Our sector-level analysis "looks-through"...

Unsecured interbank money market rates such as the Euribor increased strongly with the start of the financial market turbulences in August 2007. There is clear evidence that these rates reached levels that cannot be explained alone by higher credit risk. This article presents this evidence and...

This paper studies the relative pricing of euro area sovereign CDS and the underlying government bonds. Our sample comprises weekly CDS and bond spreads of ten euro area countries for the period from January 2006 to June 2010. We first compare the determinants of CDS spreads and bond spreads and...

We study the functioning of secured and unsecured interbank markets in the presence of credit risk. The model generates empirical predictions that are in line with developments during the 2007-2009 financial crises. Interest rates decouple across secured and unsecured markets following an...

In this paper we present a methodology of model-based calibration of additional capital needed in an interconnected financial system to minimize potential contagion losses. Building on ideas from combinatorial optimization tailored to controlling contagion in case of complete information about...

This paper studies the effects of government guarantees on the interconnection between banking and sovereign debt crises in a framework where both the banks and the government are fragile and the credibility and feasibility of the guarantees are determined endogenously. The analysis delivers...

Euro area governments have committed to break the doom loop between banks and sovereigns. But policymakers disagree on how to treat sovereign exposures in bank regulation. Our contribution is to model endogenous sovereign portfolio reallocation by banks in response to regulatory reform....

Prior to the financial crisis, prudential regulation in the EU was implemented non-uniformly across countries, as options and discretions allowed national authorities to apply a more favorable regulatory treatment. We exploit the national implementation of the CRD and derive a country measure of...