We build upon a Markov-Switching Bayesian Vector Autoregression (MSBVAR) model to study how the credit default swaps market in the euro area becomes an important chain in the propagation of shocks through the entire financial system. The study sheds light on the regime-dependent...

This paper examines an episode when policy response to a financial crisis effectively incentivized financial institutions to reallocate their portfolios toward safe assets. Following a shift to a regime of enhanced regulation and scaled-down public assistance during the Savings and Loans (S&L)...

During banking crises, regulators must decide between bailouts or liquidations,neither of which are publicly popular. A comprehensive assessment of regulators,however, requires examining all their decisions against regulators’ objectives of preserving financial stability while discouraging...

How can the public assess the performance of regulators who administer the resolution of troubled banks? Economic theory indicates that regulators best serve the public interest when they act to discourage moral hazard and preserve channels of financial intermediation. I study the resolution of...

We develop an empirically-based simulation study to test policies designed to control systemic risk. We consider preventive policies targeting capital requirements and mitigation policies targeting default resolution. We find that capital buffers reduce both defaults and losses. The loss...

In the post-crisis era banks' capital adequacy is established by the Basel III capital standards and, in many jurisdictions, also by supervisory stress tests. In this paper we first describe the ways in which supervisory stress tests can supplement the risk-based capital framework of Basel III...

The reserve requirements established by the National Banking Acts (NBAs) dictated the amounts and locations of interbank deposits, thereby reshaping the structure of U.S. bank networks. Using unique data on bank balance sheets, along with detailed interbank deposits in 1862 and 1867 in...