We examine the bilateral composition of international bond portfolios for the euro area and the individual EMU member countries. We find considerable support for “euro area bias”: EMU member countries disproportionately invest in one another relative to other country pairs. Another striking...

Four years after the introduction of the euro, this paper provides an overview of the current structure and integration of the euro area financial systems and related policy initiatives. We first compare the euro area financial structure with that of the United States and Japan. Using new and...

This paper provides new evidence on the dynamics of equity risk premia in euro area stock markets across country and industry portfolios. We develop and estimate a conditional intertemporal CAPM where returns on aggregate euro area, country and industry portfolios depend on the market risk as...

The paper investigates the impact of financial integration on asset return, risk diversification and breadth of financial markets. We analyse a three-country macroeconomic model in which (i) the number of financial assets is endogenous; (ii) assets are imperfect substitutes; (iii) cross-border...

To examine the validity of real interest parity (RIP), this study provides empirical evidences concerning the dynamic linkages of real interest rates among ASEAN-5 and the mean reversion behaviors of real interest differentials of ASEAN-5.vis-à-vis Japan during the post liberalization era...

Our goal in this project is to gain a better empirical understanding of the international financial implications of currency movements. To this end, we construct a database of international currency exposures for a large panel of countries over 1990-2004. We show that trade-weighted exchange...

Fluctuations in GDP are more synchronized internationally than fluctuations in consumption, and they remain so even between financially-integrated economies, where the ranking should in theory be the reverse. This Paper shows this happens because correlations in GDP fluctuations rise with...

The diversity in the current degree of financial development across the EU can be a great opportunity at a time where this area is poised to become increasingly financially integrated. Integration should accelerate the development of the most backward financial markets, and allow companies from...

Over the past decades, the real and financial volatility of listed firms has increased, while the volatility of private firms has decreased. We first provide panel data evidence that, at the firm level, sales and employment volatility are impacted by changes in the degree of ownership...

In this Paper, we document how in the wake of monetary unification the markets for euro area sovereign and private-sector bonds have become increasingly integrated. Issuers and investors alike have come to regard the euro area bond market as a single one. Primary and secondary bond markets have...