Forbearance is a practice of granting concessions to troubled borrowers, typically in the form of prolongation of maturity or refinancing of the loan. While economically useful in some circumstances, it can be used by banks in order to reduce the need for provisions and conceal potential losses....

This paper contributes new evidence on market pricing of rating changes. We examine the relation between spreads and ratings for a very large and comprehensive sample of corporate bonds, which allows us to test for country- and industry-specific effects, as well as to explore the differences...

This paper proposes a set of indicators relevant for the risk characteristics of covered bonds, as based on granular publicly available transparency data. The indicators capture various aspects of cash flow risks related to the issuer, the cover pool and the payment structure. They offer unified...

In this paper a semiparametric stochastic metafrontier approach is used to obtain insight into firm-level competitiveness in Europe. We differ from standard TFP studies at the firm level as we simultaneously allow for inefficiency, noise and do not impose a functional form on the input-output...

We propose a numerical test of the non-parametric conditions for additive separability between consumption and real money balances, building on Varian (1983). If additive separability is rejected, then real balances enter into the theoretical IS curve. We test whether or not monetary assets and...

This paper examines the quality of credit ratings assigned to banks in Europe and the United States by the three largest rating agencies over the past two decades. We interpret credit ratings as relative assessments of creditworthiness, and define a new ordinal metric of rating error based on...

Applying the identification strategy employed by Driscoll (2004) for the United States, this paper provides empirical evidence for the existence of a bank lending channel of monetary policy transmission in the euro area. In addition, and in contrast to recent findings for the US, we find that in...

Why do residential mortgages carry a fixed or an adjustable interest rate? To answer this question we study unique data from 103 banks belonging to 73 different banking groups across twelve countries in the euro area. To explain the large cross-country and time variation observed, we distinguish...

This paper presents a stress test model for the CDS market, with a focus on the interplay between banks' bond and CDS holdings. The model enables the analysis of credit risk transfer mechanisms, includes features of market and liquidity risk, and allows for contagious propagation of counterparty...