Euro Area Sovereign Risk During the Crisis


Book Description

While the use of public resources is critical to cushion the impact of the financial crisis on the euro-area economy, it is key that the entailed fiscal costs not be seen by markets as undermining fiscal sustainability. From this perspective, to what extent do movements in euro area sovereign spreads reflect country-specific solvency concerns? In line with previous studies, the paper suggests that euro area sovereign risk premium differentials tend to comove over time and are mainly driven by a common time-varying factor, mimicking global risk repricing. Since October 2008, however, there is evidence that markets have become progressively more concerned about the potential fiscal implications of national financial sectors'' frailty and future debt dynamics. The liquidity of sovereign bond markets still seems to play a significant (albeit fairly limited) role in explaining changes in euro area spreads.




Managing the Sovereign-Bank Nexus


Book Description

This paper reviews empirical and theoretical work on the links between banks and their governments (the bank-sovereign nexus). How significant is this nexus? What do we know about it? To what extent is it a source of concern? What is the role of policy intervention? The paper concludes with a review of recent policy proposals.




Banks, Government Bonds, and Default


Book Description

We analyze holdings of public bonds by over 20,000 banks in 191 countries, and the role of these bonds in 20 sovereign defaults over 1998-2012. Banks hold many public bonds (on average 9% of their assets), particularly in less financially-developed countries. During sovereign defaults, banks increase their exposure to public bonds, especially large banks and when expected bond returns are high. At the bank level, bondholdings correlate negatively with subsequent lending during sovereign defaults. This correlation is mostly due to bonds acquired in pre-default years. These findings shed light on alternative theories of the sovereign default-banking crisis nexus.




Euro Area Sovereign Risk During the Crisis


Book Description

While the use of public resources is critical to cushion the impact of the financial crisis on the euro-area economy, it is key that the entailed fiscal costs not be seen by markets as undermining fiscal sustainability. From this perspective, to what extent do movements in euro area sovereign spreads reflect country-specific solvency concerns? In line with previous studies, the paper suggests that euro area sovereign risk premium differentials tend to comove over time and are mainly driven by a common time-varying factor, mimicking global risk repricing. Since October 2008, however, there is evidence that markets have become progressively more concerned about the potential fiscal implications of national financial sectors' frailty and future debt dynamics. The liquidity of sovereign bond markets still seems to play a significant (albeit fairly limited) role in explaining changes in euro area spreads.




The Dynamics of Sovereign Debt Crises and Bailouts


Book Description

Motivated by the recent European debt crisis, this paper investigates the scope for a bailout guarantee in a sovereign debt crisis. Defaults may arise from negative income shocks, government impatience or a "sunspot"-coordinated buyers strike. We introduce a bailout agency, and characterize the minimal actuarially fair intervention that guarantees the no-buyers-strike fundamental equilibrium, relying on the market for residual financing. The intervention makes it cheaper for governments to borrow, inducing them borrow more, leaving default probabilities possibly rather unchanged. The maximal backstop will be pulled precisely when fundamentals worsen.







The Sovereign Debt Crisis


Book Description

"The Sovereign Debt Crisis," 2012 edition, looked at how governments ran up substantial deficits in order to avert a worldwide depression and their subsequent attempts to rebalance their budgets. This updated edition concentrates on the delicate balancing act the economies of the United States, Japan, and the eurozone face between the present need to boost sluggish economic growth by providing sufficiently cheap, low-risk credit and the longer-term challenges of cutting massive debt and returning to a sustainable fiscal policy. The authors argue that many of the euro area economies, having noticeable difficulty paying their international debts, are in a sovereign debt crisis, while America and Japan are, for now, holding steady but in real danger of slipping into crisis. The book shows how the process has evolved in these three major developed economies and how their policy choices impact global financial markets.




Laid Low


Book Description

The latest book by journalist and author Paul Blustein to go behind the scenes at the highest levels of global economic policy making, Laid Low chronicles the International Monetary Fund’s role in the euro-zone crisis. Based on interviews with a wide range of participants and scrutiny of thousands of documents, the book tells how the IMF joined in bailouts that all too often piled debt atop debt and imposed excessively harsh conditions on crisis-stricken countries. As the author shows, IMF officials had grave misgivings about a number of these rescues, but went along at the insistence of powerful European policy makers — to the detriment of the Fund’s credibility, with disheartening implications for the management of future crises. The narrative ends with a tale of the clash between Greece’s radical Syriza government and the country’s creditor institutions that reached a dramatic climax in the summer of 2015.




Contemporary Issues in Banking


Book Description

This book offers insights into the contemporary issues in banking with a special focus on the recent European regulatory reforms, governance and the performance of firms. Written by prestigious professors and expert academics in the field, the book also covers a diverse set of topics that have gained great importance in this sector such as firm financing, culture, risk and other challenges faced by banks. The book is of interest to scholars, students and professionals in banking.




A Banking Union for the Euro Area


Book Description

The SDN elaborates the case for, and the design of, a banking union for the euro area. It discusses the benefits and costs of a banking union, presents a steady state view of the banking union, elaborates difficult transition issues, and briefly discusses broader EU issues. As such, it assesses current plans and provides advice. It is accompanied by three background technical notes that analyze in depth the various elements of the banking union: a single supervisory framework; a single resolution and common safety net; and urgent issues related to repair of weak banks in Europe.