The financial crisis of 2007-09 highlighted the changing role of financial institutions and the growing importance of the shadow banking system, which grew out of the securitization of assets and the integration of banking with capital market developments. This trend was most pronounced in the...

We propose a measure for systemic risk: CoVaR, the value at risk (VaR) of financial institutions conditional on other institutions being in distress. We define an institution's (marginal) contribution to systemic risk as the difference between CoVaR and the financial system's VaR. From our...

We provide robust evidence of deviations from the covered interest rate parity (CIP) relation since the onset of the financial crisis in August 2007. The CIP deviations exist with respect to several different dollar-denominated interest rates and exchange rate pairings of the dollar vis-à-vis...

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives have been blamed for increasing systemic risk. Although OTC derivatives were not a central cause of the crisis, the complexity and limited transparency of the market reinforced the potential for excessive risk-taking,...

Our trust in competition policy is based on faith in markets. When markets are oligopolies, already classical economists’ trust in competition busted: Oligopolies carry the seeds of collusion. To develop, collusion needs trust between firms. But new leniency programmes are designed to bust...

Since the launch of Bitcoin in 2009, the spectacular rise and fall of cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology have attracted global attention. While the application of distributed ledger technology presents great economic and business potential, significant volatility and...

We study how high-frequency traders (HFTs) strategically decide their speed level in a market with a random speed bump. If HFTs recognize the market impact of their speed decision, they perceive a wider bid-ask spread as an endogenous upward-sloping cost of being faster. We find that the speed...

The 2007-2008 financial crises has made it painfully obvious that markets may quickly turn illiquid.Moreover, recent experience has shown that distress and lack of active trading can jump “around”between seemingly unconnected parts of the financial system contributing to transforming...

What are liquidity crises? And what can be done to address them? This short paper brings together some personal reflections on this issue, largely based on previous work. In the process, it questions a number of commonly held beliefs that have become part of the conventional wisdom. The paper is...

The paper presents a comprehensive data set of all bonds issued by the sixteenGerman states (Länder) since 1992. It thus provides a complete picture of acapital market comparable in size to funds raised in the German fixed incomemarket for corporations. The quantitative analysis reveals that...