This paper uses Bayesian model averaging (BMA) techniques to examine the driving factors of equity returns of U.S. financial institutions. The main advantage of BMA is accounting for model uncertainty. For the period 1986-2010, we fi nd that the most likely model explaining banking sector...

We identify and track over time the factors that make the financial system vulnerable to fire sales by constructing an index of aggregate vulnerability. The index starts increasing quickly in 2004, before most other major systemic risk measures, and triples by 2008. The fire-sale-specific...

Banks lend more to banks that are similar to them. Using data from the German credit register and proprietary supervisory data on the quality of banks’ loan portfolio, we show that a similar portfolio of the lending and borrowing bank helps to overcome information asymmetries in interbank...

In the present paper we study the dynamics of penalization parameter ? of the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) method proposed by Tibshirani (1996) and extended into quantile regression context by Li and Zhu (2008). The dynamic behaviour of the parameter ? can be observed...

This paper proposes Spillover Persistence as a measure for financial fragility. The volatility paradox predicts that fragility builds up when volatility is low, which challenges existing measures. Spillover Persistence tackles this challenge by exploring a novel dimension of systemic risk: loss...

We study the distributional consequences of monetary policy-induced credit supply in the labor market. To this end, we construct a novel dataset that links worker employment histories to firm financials and banking relationships in Germany. Firms in relationships with banks that are more exposed...

In this paper I will follow Hyman Minsky in arguing that the postwar period has seen a slow transformation of the economy from a structure that could be characterized as "robust" to one that is "fragile". While many economists and policymakers have argued that "no one saw it coming", Minsky and...

We find that competition from payday lenders leads depository institutions to raise overdraft fees and reduce the availability of “free” checking accounts. We attribute this rise in prices partly to adverse selection created by banks’ practice of charging a flat fee regardless of the...

Liquidity backstops have important implications for financial stability. In this paper, we provide a microfoundation for the important role of liquidity backstops in mitigating runs (or, conversely, the role of the lack of liquidity backstops in exacerbating runs) based on a dynamic model of...

Countries differ on the extent to which their financial system relies on banks or on the financial market. We offer a model featuring a possible two way relationship between countries' financial system architecture and their comparative advantage. Countries specialising in bank dependent sectors...