We investigate whether the ECB aligns its monetary policy with financial crisis risk in EMU member countries. We find that since the outbreak of the subprime crisis the ECB has significantly increased net lending and reduced interest rates when banking and sovereign debt crisis risk in...

Severe simultaneous recessions are defined to occur when at least half of the countries under investigation (Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States) are in recession simultaneously. I pose two new research questions that extend upon stylized facts for US recessions....