Changes in sovereign ratings are strongly asymmetric, as downgrades tend to be deeper and faster than upgrades. In other words, once a country loses its initial status it takes a long time to recover it. Using S&P data, we characterise “rating cycles” in terms of their duration and...

The fallout from the 2008 financial crisis has been particularly acute in the euro area Member States of the south-western rim and in the new EU Member States, due to their previously accumulated macroeconomic and financial imbalances. The perception that the euro environment provided a solid...

The use of central bank liquidity lines has gained momentum since the global financial crisis in order to provide liquidity in foreign exchange markets, while at the same time preventing threats to financial stability and negative spillbacks. US dollar swap lines are well studied, but much less...

This paper investigates the role that two key methodological choices play in the construction of textual indicators: the selection of local versus foreign newspapers and the breadth of the press coverage (i.e. the number of newspapers considered). The large literature in this field is almost...

We show how policy uncertainty and conflict-related shocks impact the dynamics of economic activity (GDP) in Russia. We use alternative indicators of “conflict”, relating to specific aspects of this general concept: geopolitical risk, social unrest, outbreaks of political violence and...

It is widely accepted that episodes of social unrest, conflict, political tensions and policy uncertainty affect the economy. Nevertheless, the real-time dimension of such relationships is less studied, and it remains unclear how to incorporate them in a forecasting framework. This can be partly...

This paper presents a tool to detect the accumulation of risks in emerging market economies based on a synthetic index of “vulnerability” for three different types of crisis (sovereign, currency and banking crises). To build the index we first use a signalling approach (Auroc) to preselect...

This article analyzes the impact of the unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) of four major central banks (the Fed, ECB, BoE and BOJ) on the probability of future market crashes. We exploit the heterogeneity of different UMP actions to disentangle their influence on reducing the ex ante...

In a simplied theoretical framework, we model the strategic interactions between OPEC and non-OPEC producers and the implications for the global oil market. Depending on market conditions, OPEC may find it optimal to act either as a monopolist on the residual demand curve, to move supply...

This paper empirically analyzes the role of institutional factors in shaping the dynamics of gross capital flows. We build an institutional quality index and test its relevance for both gross capital inflows and outflows using a panel of 56 countries, differentiating between high-income and...