In this chapter we document fiscal policy developments in the main euro area economies over the last two decades and highlight the dramatic changes triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse how euro area yield curves respond to COVID-19 related expectations of fiscal expansion. We show how...

Using a rich dataset of high frequency historical information from 2004 to 2013 we study the determinants of European sovereign bond returns over calm and crisis periods. We find that the sign of the equity beta crucially depends on country risk. In low risk countries, government bonds represent...