We quantify the effect of refinancing risk on euro area money market spreads, a major factor driving spreads during the financing crisis. With the advent of the crisis, market participants' perception of their ability to refinance over a given period of time changed radically. As a result,...

Eine übermässige Verschuldung des privaten Sektors kann die Stabilität der Wirtschaft untergraben. In diesem Feature wird die Schuldendienstquote als Messgrösse für den eingeschränkten finanziellen Spielraum vorgeschlagen, der sich aus der Verschuldung des privaten Sektors ergibt. Ferner...

Excessive private sector debt can undermine economic stability. In this special feature, we propose the debt service ratio (DSR) as a measure of the financial constraints imposed by private sector indebtedness, and investigate its association with recessions and financial crises. We find that...

We characterize empirically the financial cycle using two approaches: analysis of turning points and frequency-based filters. We identify the financial cycle with the medium-term component in the joint fluctuations of credit and property prices; equity prices do not fit this picture well. We...