Integrated capital markets facilitate risk sharing across countries. Lower home bias in financial investments is an indicator of risk sharing. We highlight that existing indicators of equity home bias in the literature suffer from incomplete coverage because they consider only listed equities....

This note weighs the merits of a capital market union (CMU) for Europe, identifies major obstacles in its path, and recommends a set of carefully targeted policy actions. European capital markets are relatively small, resulting in strong bank-dependence, and are split sharply along national...

The euro area remains in a state of flux and appears to be unsustainable in its present form. The outcome of the crisis may be unknown for years and a judgement on the project’s success or failure may be out of reach for decades.In the meantime, analysts, portfolio managers and traders will...