This paper investigates the role of credit and liquidity factors in explaining corporate CDS price changes during normal and crisis periods. We find that liquidity risk is more important than firm-specific credit risk regardless of market conditions. Moreover, in the period prior to the recent...

We analyse a sample of 6 million firm-year observations of large corporations and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) spanning 6 European countries from 2005 to 2015, to determine the impact of leverage and different sources of funding on default risk. We find that financial leverage has a...

In this chapter we document fiscal policy developments in the main euro area economies over the last two decades and highlight the dramatic changes triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse how euro area yield curves respond to COVID-19 related expectations of fiscal expansion. We show how...

Using a rich dataset of high frequency historical information from 2004 to 2013 we study the determinants of European sovereign bond returns over calm and crisis periods. We find that the sign of the equity beta crucially depends on country risk. In low risk countries, government bonds represent...

We investigate the impact of banking competition on corporate credit risk. Although banking competition does not, on average, affect corporate bankruptcy rates, we find that it causes corporate bankruptcies to increase significantly for high-leverage firms. This effect lasts up to eight years...

We are the first to explore the empirical relationship between interest rates and debt supply expectations derived from Treasury press releases. We find that news on expected government bond supply affects bond yields, but only when the news is an accurate reflection of future supply. We exploit...