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...

This paper estimates the cost of sovereign default by using novel econometric methods - dynamic local projections applied to a sample that is re-randomised using inverse propensity score weights. We find that the impact of default on output is negative, significant and persistent - around 2.8%...

This paper studies a newly compiled data set of annual balance sheets of more than 11,000 commercial banks across 17 advanced economies since 1870. The new data expose the central role of large banks for credit cycles and financial instability throughout modern financial history and the...