This paper studies the effects of ECB communications about unconventional monetary policy operations on the perceived sovereign risk of Italy over the last five years. More than fifty events concerning non-standard operations are identified and classified with respect to the specific ECB...

The recent Euro area crisis, which has originally been driven mainly by macroeconomic factors, has had a strong impact also on financial markets leading internationally to what is referred as contagion, that is co-movements among asset prices which have been excessive respect to fundamentals....