For the euro debt crisis, we assess the relevance of financial contagion from an investor perspective. We find that contagion, which we identify through the joint occurrence of extremely negative bond returns, has only small and transitory effects on broad government bond portfolios. For...

Traditionally, insurers are seen as stabilisers of financial markets that act countercyclically by buying assets whose price falls. Recent studies challenge this view by providing empirical evidence of procyclicality. This paper sheds new light on the underlying reasons for these opposing views....

We study co-movement of 10-year sovereign bond yields of 11 EU countries. Our analysis is focused mainly on changes of co-movement in the crisis period, especially near two significant dates - the fall of Lehman Brothers, September 15, 2008, and the announcement of increase of Greek's public...

Public and private sector balance sheets are an important component to any analysis of debt sustainability. A vulnerable and indebted private sector can become a sudden liability for the government; alternatively, resilient household and bank balance sheets may reveal potential sources of...