We study determinants of sovereign portfolios of Spanish banks over a long time-span, starting in 2008. Our findings challenge the view that banks engaged in moral hazard strategies to exploit the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures. In particular, we show that being a weakly capitalized...

We estimate the response of euro area sovereign bond yields to purchase operations under the ECB's Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP), using granular data on all PSPP-eligible securities at daily frequency. To avoid simultaneity bias in the estimated relationship between yields and purchase...

The ongoing policy strategy review presents a unique opportunity for the ECB to examine how to best employ its immense power to fulfil its mandate. Two challenges require urgent attention. First, the “lowflation” problem – the outcome of overly tight policies that allowed inflation to...

Using the recursive unit root test by Phillips et al. (2011) we show that the Target balances of the German Bundesbank have been explosive from the beginning of 2009 to the beginning of 2013. By implementing a full-allotment policy and reducing the required minimum quality of collaterals in...

The main focus of the paper is on the behavior of central banks, which during the crisis have radically changed the traditional tools of interventions taking many measures generally termed “unconventional monetary policies”. Four central banks are taken into consideration: Federal Reserve...