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...

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....

This paper predicts phases of the financial cycle by combining a continuous financial stress measure in a Markov switching framework. The debt service ratio and property market variables signal a transition to a high financial stress regime, while economic sentiment indicators provide signals...

This paper develops composite indicators of financial integration within the euro area for both price-based and quantity-based indicators covering money, bond, equity and banking markets. Prior to aggregation, individual integration indicators are harmonised by applying the probability integral...

The global nature of derivatives markets, and the presence of large key financial institutions trading in several markets across the globe, call for taking a "macro" view on the interconnections arising in the clearing network. Based on the analysis of derivatives transactions data reported...

The network structure of non-centrally cleared derivative markets, uncovered via the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), is investigated with a focus on the Covid-19 market turmoil period. Initial and variation margin networks are reconstructed to analyze channels of potential...

This paper proposes a large-scale Bayesian vector autoregression with factor stochastic volatility to investigate the macroeconomic consequences of international uncertainty shocks in G7 countries. The curse of dimensionality is addressed by means of a global-local shrinkage prior that mimics...

In the immediate wake of the Great Recession we didn't see the disinflation that most models predicted and, subsequently, we didn't see the inflation they predicted. We show that these puzzles disappear in a Vector Autoregressive model that properly accounts for domestic and global factors. Such...

We study the effects of the diversification of funding sources on the financing conditions for firms. We exploit a regulatory reform which took place in Italy in 2012, i.e., the introduction of "minibonds", which opened a new market-based funding opportunity for unlisted firms. Using the Italian...

This paper assesses whether the international monetary system is already tripolar and centred around the US dollar, the euro and the Chinese renminbi (RMB). It focuses on what we call China's "dominance hypothesis", i.e. whether the renminbi is already the dominant currency in Asia, exerting a...