The notable increase in international reserve holdings over the past decade and their use during the global financial crisis of 2008/2009 has sparked renewed interest in the analysis of the optimal level of reserve holdings, in particular in countries which are subject to sudden stops. Less...

We study how and to what extent private households are affected by the recent financial crisis and how their financial decisions are inuenced by this shock. Our analysis reveals that individuals with low levels of financial literacy are less likely to have invested in the stock market and thus...

The causes of the 2008 collapse and subsequent surge in global capital flows remain an open and highly controversial issue. Employing a factor model coupled with a dataset of high-frequency portfolio capital flows to 50 economies, the paper finds that common shocks - key crisis events as well as...

We investigate asset returns around banking crises in 44 advanced and emerging economies from 1960 to 2018. In contrast to the view that buying assets during banking crises is a profitable long-run strategy, we find returns of equity and other asset classes generally underperform after banking...

The investment fund sector has expanded dramatically since the crisis of 2008-2009. As the sector grows, so do the implications of its risk-taking for the wider financial system and real economy. This paper provides empirical evidence for the existence of widespread risk-taking incentives in the...

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....

Traditionally, insurers are seen as stabilisers of financial markets that act countercyclically by buying assets whose price falls. Recent studies challenge this view by providing empirical evidence of procyclicality. This paper sheds new light on the underlying reasons for these opposing views....

Liquidity has its systemic aspect that is frequently neglected in research and risk management applications. We build a model that focuses on systemic aspects of liquidity and its links with solvency conditions accounting for pertinent interactions between market participants in an agent-based...

The market turmoil in March 2020 highlighted key vulnerabilities in the EU money market fund (MMF) sector. This paper assesses the effectiveness of the EU's regulatory framework from a financial stability perspective, based on a panel analysis of EU MMFs at a daily frequency. First, we find that...

What is the impact of stress tests on bank stock prices? To answer this question we study the impact of the publication of the EU-wide stress tests in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021 on the first (λ) and second (δ) moment of equity returns. First, we study the effect of the disclosure of stress...