What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndicate speculating in Amsterdam in 1772 went...

The breakdown of the interbank money markets in the face of the recent financial crisis has forced central banks and governments to take extraordinary measures to sustain financial stability. In this paper we investigate which influence central bank activity has on interbank markets. In our...

We study alternative scenarios for exiting the post-crisis fiscal and monetary accommodation using the model of Angeloni and Faia (2010), that combines a standard DSGE framework with a fragile banking sector, suitably modified and calibrated for the euro area. Credibly announced and fast fiscal...

In mid-September 2008, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, international interbank markets froze and interbank lending beyond very short maturities virtually evaporated. Despite massive central bank support operations and purchases of key assets, many financial markets remained impaired...

In this paper we develop empirical measures for the strength of spillover effects. Modifying and extending the framework by Diebold and Yilmaz (2011), we quantify spillovers between sovereign credit markets and banks in the euro area. Spillovers are estimated recursively from a vector...

Our concern in this paper is two-fold: first to see whether the determinants of bank distress and failure have been any different in the GFC from previous years: second to see whether simple measures of capital adequacy outperform their risk-weighted counterparts as predictors, despite the focus...

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Aufarbeitung der Hintergründe der Subprime-Krise sowie der nachfolgenden internationalen Banken- und Finanzkrisen. Auf dieser Basis werden Vor-schläge diskutiert, wie die erkannten Schwachstellen im Finanzsystem repariert bzw. behoben werden...

This paper investigates contagion between bank risk and sovereign risk in Europe over the period 2006-2011. Since this period covers various stages of the banking and sovereign crisis, it offers a fertile ground to analyze bank/sovereign risk spillovers. We define contagion as excess...

This paper investigates systemic risk in the insurance industry. We first analyze the systemic contribution of the insurance industry vis-à-vis other industries by applying 3 measures, namely the linear Granger causality test, conditional value at risk and marginal expected shortfall, on 3...

In summer 2011, elevated sovereign risk in Eurozone peripheral countries increased the solvency risk of Eurozone banks, precipitating a run on their short-term debt. We assess the effectiveness of different European Central Bank (ECB) interventions that followed – lender of last resort vs....