Repo auctions are used to inject central bank funds against collateral into the banking sector. The ECB uses standard discriminatory auctions and hundreds of banks participate. The amount auctioned over the monthly reserve maintenance period is in principle exactly what banks collectively need...

We study bidder behavior and performance in 53 main refinancing operations (quot;repo auctionsquot;) of the European Central Bank (ECB). The data set starts with the first auction after the ECB changed from fixed rate tenders to variable rate tenders. We find that private information and the...

This report summarises the findings of the task force. It is organised as follows. Section 2 starts with a discussion of the relevance of credit risk for central banks. It is followed by a short introduction to credit risk models, parameters and systems in Section 3, focusing on models used by...

This paper reviews the role and effects of the collateral framework which central banks, and in particular the Eurosystem, use in conducting temporary monetary policy operations. First, the paper explains the design of such a framework from the perspective of risk mitigation, which is the...

In a dual liquidity crisis, both the government and the banking sector are under severe funding stress. By nature, dual crises have the potential of being particularly disruptive and damaging. Thus, understanding their mechanics, how they unfold and how they can be addressed under various...

This paper contributes to the literature on liquidity crises and central banks acting as lenders of last resort by capturing the mechanics of dual liquidity crises, i.e. funding crises which encompass both the private and the public sector, within a closed system of financial accounts. We...