This paper documents how sovereign debt ratings shape euro area cross-border holdings of euro area sovereign debt, using granular sectoral security holdings statistics for the period 2009Q4 until 2016Q1. Credit risk is the main risk for bond investors when investing in bonds that are issued in...

This paper investigates the determinants in migrants' choice of payment channel when transferring money to relatives abroad. We surveyed 1,680 migrants in the Netherlands, identifying five remittance channels: bank services, money transfer operator (MTO) services, in-cash transfers via informal...

This paper examines which variables have predictive power for financial stress in a sample of 25 OECD countries, using a recently constructed Financial Stress Index (FSI). First, we employ Bayesian model averaging to identify leading indicators of our FSI. Next, we use those indicators as...

This paper develops a Financial Stress Index (FSI) for 28 OECD countries and examines its relationship to crises using a novel database for financial crises. A stress index measures the current state of stress in the financial system and summarizes it in a single statistic. Our results suggest...

This paper empirically investigates if insurers exhibited a flight home or flight to quality during the European sovereign debt crisis and other stages of the financial crisis. Our dataset consists of over sixty insurance companies, for which we separately observe trading behaviour and portfolio...

This paper considers the short-term effects of competitiveness shocks on macroeconomic performance in the euro area. Vector autoregressive models are estimated on quarterly data from 1995 to 2013 for individual countries and the whole euro area. The results show that competitiveness shocks help...

This paper considers the short-term effects of competitiveness shocks on macroeconomic performance in the euro area. Vector autoregressive models are estimated on quarterly data from 1995 to 2013 for individual countries and the whole euro area. The results show that competitiveness shocks help...

This paper analyzes the empirical link between asset prices, consumption and the trade balance using a global macroeconometric model developed by Pesaran, Schuermann, and Weiner (2004) that explicitly captures each country's position within the world economy through bilateral trade patterns. The...

We measure stock market co-exeedances using the methodology of Cappiello, Gerard and Manganelli (2005, ECB Working Paper 501). This method is based on quantile regressions and enables us to measure comovement at each point of the return distribution. First, we construct an annual co-exeedance...