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...

1. The Basics of Modern Money Theory -- 2. The Basics of Macroeconomic Accounting -- 3. Spending by Issuer of Domestic Currency -- 4. The Domestic Monetary System: Banking and Central Banking -- 5. Fiscal Operations in a Nation That Issues Its Own Currency -- 6. Tax Policy for Sovereign Nations...

This paper studies the emergence of sovereign bond yield spreads in the Eurozone prior to the financial crisis. While spreads were close to zero in European government debt markets until the mid-2000s, they have persistently widened since then in many member states. We employ a...

Using a central bank legislation database, this paper documents and analyzes worldwide institutional arrangements for central bank lending to the government and identifies international practices. Key findings are: (i) in most advanced countries, central banks do not finance government...