The restructuring process of sovereign debt is not yet managed under common global rules; public debt stabilisation is an explicit policy goal in the EU, but cannot be achieved if local public authorities do not control their liabilities and connected risks. EU local administrations’ debt...

To what extent does the availability of credit depend on monetary policy? And, does this relationship vary with bank characteristics? Based on a common source of balance sheet data for the four largest economies of the euro area over the period 1999-2011, we uncover three main regularities....