The global financial crisis of 2007-2008 focused the attention of financial authorities on developing methods to forecast and avoid future financial crises of similar magnitude. We contribute to the literature on crisis prediction in several important ways. First, we develop an early warning...

Reliable forecasts of an economic crisis well in advance of its onset could permit effective preventative measures to mitigate its consequences. Using the EU15 crisis of 2008 as a template, we develop methodology that can accurately predict the crisis several quarters in advance in each country....

This paper, drawing on the lessons from the sovereign debt crisis, tries to give answers to some key questions: Was the strategy and specific actions to cope with the crisis appropriate? Was the priority given to preserving financial stability justified? Are stability and growth objectives...

This paper explores the effects of bank credit on firm growth before and after the recent financial crisis outbreak, taking into account different structural characteristics of the banking sector and the domestic economy. The econometric method of panel quantiles is used on a large sample of...

We document the existence of a global monetary policy factor in sovereign bond yields in a panel of 45 countries, consisting of both developed and emerging economies. This global factor is related to the size of the aggregate balance sheet of the four major central banks (Fed, ECB, Bank of Japan...

The euro-area sovereign debt crisis was characterized by feedback loops between (1) sovereign bond ratings and sovereign spreads in single jurisdictions and (2) sovereign spreads and ratings among jurisdictions. One explanation of this circumstance is that the ECB was unable to perform the role...

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...

We examine the impact of the ECB’s Securities Market Program (SMP) and the ECB’s two Covered Bond Purchase Programs (CBPPs) on sovereign bond spreads and covered-bond prices, respectively, for five euro-area stressed countries -- Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Our data are...

In this paper we construct Financial Conditions Indices (FCIs) for the euro area, for the period 2003 to 2011, using a wide range of prices, quantities, spreads and survey data, grounded in the theoretical literature. One FCI includes monetary policy variables, while two versions of the FCI...