Monetary policy transmission may be impaired if banks rebalance their portfolios towards securities. We identify the bank lending and risk-taking channels of monetary policy by exploiting – Italian's unique – credit and security registers. In crisis times, with higher ECB liquidity, less...

We study the effect of counterparty risk on the ability of Italian banks to access the foreign unsecured interbank market during the sovereign debt crisis in the second half of 2011. With the onset of the crisis, interest rates in the Italian interbank market soared and foreign lending decreased...