Recently, the advantage of country diversification relative to sector diversification has been questioned especially against the background of the European monetary and financial integration. Correct estimates of the correlation matrix are central for the evaluation of the relative...

In this paper, we find that home bias is still present in all economies and regions, especially in the case of short-term debt securities, but that there are substantial variations among economies and regions in the strength of home bias, with the Eurozone economies, the US, and developing Asia...

In recent years, banks have become increasingly aware of the credit risk borne in lending in the interbank market and they select their counter-parties accordingly. They may also fear that if they come across a bad borrower, rescue plans will be skewed towards domestic creditors; moreover,...

The shift of perspective from a national basis to a Euro area basis, inevitably induced by EMU, has led member countries to a parallel shift from equity home bias to equity Euro bias. We interpret this evidence by means of a standard mean-variance portfolio selection model modified in order to...

In 2007, countries in the euro periphery were enjoying stable growth, low deficits and low spreads. Then the financial crisis erupted and pushed them into deep recession, raising their deficits and debt levels. By 2010, they were facing severe debt problems. Spreads increased and, surprisingly,...

This paper investigates whether global investors are over or under exposed towards the euro area and the role of home bias and institutions at home in shaping this exposure. According to a simple benchmark from standard portfolio theory, euro area investors - in particular those from euro area...

One of the most striking consequences of the recent episode of sovereign debt market stress in the Eurozone has been the increase in the share of public debt held by the domestic sector in fragile economies. However, the causes and potential consequences of this increase were only given scarce...

Recently, the advantage of country diversification relative to sector diversification has been questioned especially against the background of the European monetary and financial integration. Correct estimates of the correlation matrix are central for the evaluation of the relative...

This paper quantifies the economic influence that shocks to EMU cohesion, which in turn reflect the incomplete nature of the monetary union, have on the rest of the world. Disentangling euro area stress shocks and global risk aversion shocks based on a combination of sign, magnitude and...