Collateral plays a very important role in financial markets. Without easy access to high-quality collateral, dealers and market participants would find it more costly to trade, with a negative impact on market liquidity and the real economy through increased financing costs. The role of...

This thesis was written by Nadjeschda Katharina Arnold while having been a research assistant at the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at the University of Munich. It was completed in December 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in...

The paper provides an overview of the hedge fund industry, mainly from a financial stability and European angle. It is primarily based on an extensive analysis of information from the TASS database. On the positive side of the financial stability assessment, hedge funds have a role as providers...

This paper provides a unique snapshot of the exposures of EU banks to shadow banking entities within the global financial system. Drawing on a rich and novel dataset, the paper documents the cross-sector and cross-border linkages and considers which are the most relevant for systemic risk...

The EU Single Market remains far from completed: progress in goods and services market integration has stalled, financial markets are still fragmented along national lines and the barriers to labour mobility remain high. Restrictive regulation within countries and regulatory heterogeneity across...

Asset-backed securities (ABSs) and covered bonds (CBs) are structured finance instruments that require a range of key services, which may be provided by many firms. However, despite the prevalence of structured finance instruments in Europe, the network between issuers and service providers has...

This joint ECB-DNB Occasional Paper aims to inform the ongoing discussions about an EU-level framework for operationalising macroprudential leverage limits for alternative investment funds (AIFs). It builds on, and extends, the analysis of an ECB-DNB special feature article published in the...

Europe’s economy is finally growing robustly. These positive developments provide an opportunity to renew efforts to meet the long-term challenges facing the European Union (EU). The EU’s record on reducing regional income disparities is mixed and this explains some of citizens’ discontent...

Owing to the disruptive events in the shadow banking system during the global financial crisis, policymakers and regulators have sought to strengthen the monitoring framework and to identify any remaining regulatory gaps. In accordance with its mandate, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB)...

This paper summarises the outcome of an analysis of stablecoins undertaken by the ECB Crypto-Assets Task Force. At the time of writing, the stablecoin debate lacks a common taxonomy and unambiguous terminology. This paper applies a definition that distinguishes stablecoins from existing forms of...