This paper analyzes the link between political factors and sovereign bond holdings of US investors in 60 countries over the 2003-2013 period. We find that, in general, US investors hold more bonds in countries with few political constraints on the government. Moreover, US investors respond to...

This study analyzes if regionally affiliated Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members take their districts’ regional banking sector instability into account when they vote. Considering the period from 1978 to 2010, we find that a deterioration in a district’s bank health increases the...

We analyze the effect of central bank transparency on cross-border bank activities. Based on a panel gravity model for cross-border bank claims for 21 home and 47 destination countries from 1998 to 2010, we find strong empirical evidence that a rise in central bank transparency in the...

We use the option-based Merton (1974) model to derive the implicit probability of default of 218 banks in 24 emerging economies in the period 1995-2009 from their stock prices. This solvency indicator is well comparable between banks in different countries since it does not require the selection...

During capital control episodes, large price deviations between American Depositary Receipts (ADR) and their underlying stocks signal that a currency crisis is about to occur. We interpret this price spread as the price of a call option. Using option pricing theory we derive detailed information...

We introduce a novel indicator of eurozone exit risk based on American Depositary Receipts(ADRs). We exploit ADR investors' exposure to potential losses associated with a eurozoneexit, e.g. due to redenomination of underlying stocks into the new devaluated currency, capitalcontrols or trading...