The paper examines proposals for euro bonds. The aim is to highlight the broader context of various proposals and, in particular, to assess their impact less as a solution to the problems of the current economic and financial conjuncture and, more, to focus on their long-term consequences for...

In the present paper we study the determinants of the margins paid by euro-area non-financial corporations (NFCs) for their bank loans on top of the rates they earn for their deposits (bank lending margins). We use panel VAR techniques, in order to test for causality relationships and produce...

How strong has been the effect of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on systemic risk in sovereign bond markets? Was the increase in credit spreads relative to triple-A benchmarks which followed the GFC the result of higher sovereign default risk or the result of a re-pricing that reflected...

We discuss the factors behind sovereign credit ratings and reproduce their quantitative compo-nent, focusing on the case of Greece. The sovereign credit rating of Greece is still lower than the investment grade threshold. However, some of the fundamentals of the Greek economy are shown to be...

The rational expectations hypothesis for survey and model-based inflation forecasts − from the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the Greenbook respectively − is examined by properly taking into account persistence in the data. The finding of nearunit-root effects in inflation and...

Following the Global Financial Crisis, bank lending to euro-area non-financial corporations (NFCs) has been, to a large extent, substituted by market financing. In Greece the market financing channel for NFCs has been activated since the end of 2012; by the end of 2014 bonds issued by large and...