We study determinants of sovereign portfolios of Spanish banks over a long time-span, starting in 2008. Our findings challenge the view that banks engaged in moral hazard strategies to exploit the regulatory treatment of sovereign exposures. In particular, we show that being a weakly capitalized...

The European Council's decisions to implement the De Larosiere recommendations for a reformed approach to micro-level financial supervision and a new European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) are to be welcomed. The ECB's central role in the ESRB is also to be welcomed. However, the limited role...

This paper develops a theory of the secondary market trading of financial securitities in which endogenous asset market dynamics generate periods of growing aggregate credit volumes and falling credit standards even in the absence of "financial shocks." Falling credit standards in turn lead to...

Failing to account for joint dynamics of credit and asset prices can be hazardous for countercyclical macroprudential policy. We show that composite financial cycles, emphasising expansions and contractions common to credit and asset prices, powerfully predict systemic banking crises. Further,...