The potential mutation of the Sub-Prime banking crisis into a sovereign debt one in Euro area countries is investigated. After reviewing the criteria used to measure the debt vulnerability, the balance sheet approach (BSA) is presented in order to illustrate the potential connections between...

This paper examines the spillover effects of sovereign rating news on European financial markets during the period 2007-2010. Our main finding is that sovereign rating downgrades have statistically and economically significant spillover effects both across countries and financial markets. The...

Heterogeneity in Phillips Curve slopes among members of a monetary union can lead to downward biases to estimates of the union-wide slope in reduced form regressions. The intuition is that in a monetary union with heterogeneous regional Phillips Curve slopes, the central bank, aiming at...