Along time the European Union (EU) has been pointed as the most succeeded example of regional integration. Now, this example has been cruelly shaken by the EZ (Euro Zone) crisis, originating increasing doubts about the integration process. It is evident that the proposed solutions for attacking...

After 2008, the Southern European economies suffered a strong and persistent increase in unemployment. Rising government bond spreads necessitated the implementation of austerity policies. Austerity however, may increase unemployment. If workers lose human capital during unemployment spells, the...

We propose a small open economy model where agents borrow internationally and invest in liquid foreign assets to insure against liquidity shocks, which temporarily shut out the economy of short-term credit markets. Due to the presence of a pecuniary externality individual agents borrow too much...

We study the eligibility of corporate bonds as collateral for central bank operations and its effect on interbank and corporate bond markets. While money market functionality increases in the amount of eligible assets, a thorough assessment of collateral policies must also account for endogenous...

Stylized data shows a structural break in the integration of lending markets which coincides with the global financial crisis. During and after the crisis, banks actively reduced their share of foreign relative to domestic banking activity and lending in particular. This increase in lending...

For the largest 55 German banks, we detect the presence of countercyclical yield seeking in the form of acquisition of high-yielding periphery bonds in the period from Q1 2008 to Q2 2011. This investment strategy is pursued by banks not subject to a bailout, banks characterised by high...

Understanding gross capital flows is increasingly viewed as crucial for both macroeconomic and financial stability policies, but theory is lagging behind many key policy debates. We fill this gap by developing a two-country DSGE model that tracks domestic and cross-border gross positions between...

We estimate a logit mixture vector autoregressive model describing monetary policy transmission in the euro area over the period 2003Q1-2019Q4 with a special emphasis on credit conditions. With the help of this model, monetary policy transmission can be described as mixture of two states (e.g.,...