We assess the role played by exchange rates in buffering or amplifying the propagation of shocks across international equity markets. Using copula functions we model the joint dependence between exchange rates and two global equity markets and, from a copula framework, we obtain the conditional...

Using the 2008-09 global financial crisis, this paper examines the role of different forms of international financial integration for asset price contagion in crisis times. Defining contagion as the transmission of financial market movements beyond the co-movements that would occur in...

This paper presents a detailed set of new, quantity-based indicators of financial integration in the euro area. The indicators are based on granular data from securities holdings statistics and help us disentangle the main drivers of the portfolio changes observed since the financial crisis....

At the 25th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty, this paper reviews the merits of introducing a safe sovereign asset for the eurozone. The triple euro area crisis showed the costly consequences of ignoring the "safety trilemma". Keeping a national safe sovereign asset (the German bund) as the...

This paper analyses the impact of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) on global financial markets. It presents back-of-the-envelope calculations which simulate the potential impact of a transfer of traditional foreign exchange reserves to SWFs on global capital flows. If SWFs behave as CAPM-type...

This paper reviews and assesses financial stability challenges in countries preparing for EU membership, i.e. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. The paper focuses on the period since 2014 and on the banking sectors...

This paper documents the use of derivatives by securitisation special purpose entities (SPEs), also known as financial vehicle corporations (FVCs), domiciled in Ireland using transaction-level data established by the European Market Infrastructure Regulation. We show that these entities...

This report reviews recent as well as planned changes to accounting and solvency regulations affecting insurers and pension funds and how they may impact long-term investing by these institutions. The review of existing evidence focuses mainly on the impact of risk-based solvency requirements,...