Since the European debt crisis economists and politicians discuss intensively the sovereign-bank nexus. The high activity in sovereign bond issuance required to mitigate the burden of the Covid19 crisis will rather intensify this debate than calm it down. Surprisingly, however, we still have...

The current banking regulatory framework assigns EU government bonds a risk weight of zero. Since the European debt crisis, there has been increasing controversy over eliminating this equity capital privilege, which is viewed as contributing to the close relationship between state and bank...

Although banks are required to document their equity capital for loans, corporate bonds, and other receivables, they are currently exempted from the procedure when investing in government bonds: they enjoy an “equity capital privilege.” As part of the Basel III regulatory framework redraft,...

With banking sectors worldwide still suffering from the effects of the financial crisis, public discussion of plans to place toxic assets in one or more bad banks has gained steam in recent weeks. The following paper presents a plan how governments can efficiently relieve ailing banks from toxic...

With banking sectors worldwide still suffering from the effects of the financial crisis, public discussion of plans to place toxic assets in one or more bad banks has gained steam in recent weeks. The following paper presents a plan how governments can efficiently relieve ailing banks from toxic...

With banking sectors worldwide still suffering from the effects of the financial crisis, public discussion of plans to place toxic assets in one or more bad banks has gained steam in recent weeks. The following paper presents a plan how governments can efficiently relieve ailing banks from toxic...

Compared to the U.S., the euro area has been underperforming in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). This holds especially true for peripheral euro area economies. Whereas the U.S. is characterised by a financial system dominated by arms’ length (capital-market oriented) interaction...