Outside of financial crises, investors have little incentive to produce private information on banks' short-term liabilities held as information-insensitive safe assets. The same does not hold true during crises. We measure daily information production using data from credit default swap spreads...

We describe the evolution of balance sheets of monetary financial institutions (MFI) in Portugal before, during, and after the sovereign debt crisis of the late 2000's. We account for several dimensions of heterogeneity including size, type, and nationality. We find that the Portuguese MFI...

The paper identifies how a usage fee parallel digital currency is more attractive than Bitcoins, either to provide liquidity in a crisis or for stimulating businesses on a sustainable basis. User fee "Stamp Scrip" successfully stimulated businesses and distressed communities during the Great...

Based on a detailed trade-level dataset, we analyze the proprietary trading behavior of German banks in the months directly preceding and following the Lehman collapse in September 2008. The default of Lehman Brothers was a shock to the German banking system that was both unexpected and...

Based on a detailed trade-level dataset, we analyze the proprietary trading behavior of German banks in the months directly preceding and following the Lehman collapse in September 2008. The default of Lehman Brothers was a shock to the German banking system that was both unexpected and...

Economists in the public are accused of propagating highly professional, but unrealistic theories that mislead market agents and policy makers to place too much confidence in rational behaviour and market equilibrium. The paper analyses to what extent the US banking crisis and the euro crisis...

This occasional paper describes how the financial stability and macroprudential policy functions are organised at the ECB. Financial stability has been a key policy function of the ECB since its inception. Macroprudential policy tasks were later conferred on the ECB by the Single Supervisory...

This paper studies the effects of harmonizing collateral policy in a monetary union. In 2007, the European Central Bank replaced national collateral lists with a single list specifying which assets euro area banks can pledge as collateral. Banks holding newly eligible assets experience a...

This paper studies the effects of harmonizing collateral policy in a monetary union. In 2007, the European Central Bank replaced national collateral lists with a single list specifying which assets euro area banks can pledge as collateral. Banks holding newly eligible assets experience a...

The actions by the European Central Bank (ECB) during the global and European crises have triggered a highly controversial debate, in particular in Germany, about the costs and benefits of the chosen policy path. The paper reviews, compares and evaluates the different arguments made in favour...