Among the policy responses to the global financial crisis, the international provision of US dollars via central bank swap lines stands out. This paper studies the build-up of stresses on banks' balance sheets that led to this coordinated policy response. We reconstruct the worldwide...

Understanding the global financial crisis and the stresses on bank balance sheets requires a perspective on banks’ international investment positions and how these positions were funded across currencies and counterparties. This special feature uses the BIS international banking statistics to...

Among the policy responses to the global financial crisis, the international provision of US dollars via central bank swap lines stands out. This paper studies the build-up of stresses on banks' balance sheets that led to this coordinated policy response. Using the BIS international banking...