We explore the impact of the credit crunch that followed the European debt crisis on the corporate policies of European firms. We show that banks' exposures to impaired sovereign debt and the risk-shifting behavior of undercapitalized banks contributed significantly to the severity of the...

Using novel monthly data for 226 euro-area banks from 2007 to 2015, we investigate the causes and effects of banks’ sovereign exposures during and after the euro crisis. First, in the vulnerable countries, the publicly owned, recently bailed out and less strongly capitalized banks reacted to...