Why did the shadow banking sectors in the US and the euro area expand in the decade before the financial crisis and what are the implications for systemic risk and macro-prudential policy? This paper examines these issues with a model of the financial sector where the size of the shadow banking...

We estimate that the recent surge in international fossil fuel prices will raise European households’ cost of living in 2022 by close to 7 percent of consumption on average. Household burdens vary significantly across and within countries, but in most cases they are regressive. Policymakers...

We use a decomposition methodology to analyze the factors underlying the differentiated output losses of European countries in 2020. Our findings are fourfold: First, 2020 growth outcomes can be explained by differences in mobility, underlying growth trends, and pre-pandemic country...

Ukraine’s economic performance has been anemic since the early 1990s. A major impediment to productivity growth has been low investment, held back by lack of strong and independent institutions. This paper aims to assess the major areas of institutional weakness in Ukraine and quantify the...

We present a new dataset on the dynamics of non-performing loans (NPLs) during 92 banking crises since 1990. The data show similarities across crises during NPL build-ups but much heterogeneity in the pace of NPL resolution. We document how high and unresolved NPLs deepen post-crisis recessions...

I propose a dynamic general equilibrium model in which strategic interactions between banks and depositors may lead to endogenous bank fragility and slow recovery from crises. When banks’investment decisions are not contractible, depositors form expectations about bank risk-taking and demand a...

The qualitative and granular nature of most structural indicators and the variety in data sources poses difficulties for consistent cross-country assessments and empirical analysis. We overcome these issues by using a machine learning approach (the partial least squares method) to combine a...