The sovereign debt crisis challenged investors in European government bonds to deal with volatile interest rate spreads. For managing sovereign risk, “Eurex” introduced futures contracts on Italian government bonds reflecting risks of lower rated countries. We analyze hedging strategies for...

We study determinants of sovereign portfolios of Spanish banks over a long time-span, starting in 2008. Our findings challenge the view that banks engaged in moral hazard strategies to exploit the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures. In particular, we show that being a weakly capitalized...

This paper evaluates four approaches to creating "safe assets" or asset portfolios for the euro area: (1) a diversified portfolio of senior tranches of sovereign debt ("national tranching"); (2) a senior security backed by a diversified pool of national sovereign debt ("ESBies"); (3) debt issued...

Since 2014, participation of foreign investors in the Colombian local public bond market has increased substantially. One of the factors that has driven this result is the increased weight of Colombia in JP Morgan´s Government Bond Index. Some evidence suggests that the resulting inflows have...

For the euro debt crisis, we assess the relevance of financial contagion from an investor perspective. We find that contagion, which we identify through the joint occurrence of extremely negative bond returns, has only small and transitory effects on broad government bond portfolios. For...

We document that large European banks hold sovereign debt portfolios heavily biased toward domestic government debt. This bias is stronger if the sovereign is risky and shareholder rights are strong, as evidence of a risk-shifting explanation of the home bias. In addition, the bias is stronger...

Recent events have shown that sovereigns, just like banks, can be subject to runs, highlighting the importance of the investor base for their liabilities. This paper proposes a methodology for compiling internationally comparable estimates of investor holdings of sovereign debt. Based on this...