We investigate the political determinants of risk premiums which sub-national governments in Switzerland have to pay for their sovereign bond emissions. For this purpose we make use of financial market data from 288 tradable cantonal bonds in the period from 1981 to 2007. Our main focus is on...

Emerging market sovereigns issue bonds in the international capital markets governed by a foreign legal regime such as the law of England or New York State. European sovereigns, however, have been able to issue bonds governed by the issuer's own law. In the event of a future financial crisis,...

This paper examines the intersection between two fundamental attributes of Euro Area sovereign debt. The first is that sovereigns tend to issue bonds governed by their own law, which makes a debt restructuring comparatively easy. The second is the standardized collective action clause (CAC)...

With a view to establishing a Capital Markets Union (CMU), efforts to integrate (private) capital markets and private risk-sharing in the European Union are underway. However, the single (capital) market will be burdened by a perennial potential threat to sovereign bond market stability in the...

The theory of optimal currency areas states that a currency union may succeed if the participating countries have complementary industry structures. If this is not the case a currency union does not, inevitably, have to fail because market forces will induce adjustments of the industry...

This paper discusses proposals for common euro area sovereign securities. Such instruments can potentially serve two functions: in the short-term, stabilize financialmarkets and banks and, in the medium-term, help improve the euro area economic governance framework through enhanced fiscal...

This paper argues that the Eurozone crisis stems from a risk management failure in the Eurosystem's design, and that applying insurance theory is useful. We model risk neutral agents choosing portfolios of government bonds of n countries in a monetary union and other assets. We firstly analyse a...

The present article examines the coverage of the European actors in the Greek national debt crisis in the German daily newspapers “Die Welt”, “Bild”, “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and “Die Tageszeitung”, as well as on the online platform “Spiegel...

The present study examines news reporting during the Greek national debt crisis in the German television news programmes "Tagesschau" and "heute" and in the special broadcasts "Brennpunkt" on ARD and "ZDF spezial" on ZDF. The aim is to capture the extent to which the national German media are...

This article addresses an anomaly in the European Union (EU)’s recent evolution. Two years ago, Great Britain’s exit from the EU seemed improbable, while Greece’s departure appeared to be imminent. The outcome was precisely the reverse. We explain the paradox and examine its ramifications....