There is a growing consensus that a prolonged period of low interest rates can exert a negative impact on financial stability through the risk-taking incentives of banks. Using micro-level datasets from the US banking sector, this paper finds evidence of a highly significant negative...

This note provides the first empirical assessment of the dynamic interrelation between government bond spreads and their associated credit default swaps (CDS). We use data for the Southern European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) that found themselves with a problematic public...

The US Federal Reserve’s new relaxed monetary policy (the so-called quantitative easing) has triggered controversy among economists and policy makers about its effectiveness. This paper investigates the role of monetary policy in managing the euro – dollar exchange rate via alternative...

A recent line of research highlights trust as an important element guiding the decision of households to invest into risky financial assets and insurance products. This paper contributes to this literature by identifying happiness as another key driver of the same decision. Using detailed survey...

We examine the transmission of the risk-taking channel to different industries using syndicated loans to U.S. borrowers from 1984 to 2018. We find that a one percentage point decrease in the shadow rate increases loan spreads by more than 30 basis points in the mining & construction and...

Using data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier models, we introduce a new country-month index of efficiency of government policy in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our indices cover the period May 2020 to March 2021 for 81 countries. Our framework assumes that governments impose...

Using data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier models, we introduce a new country-month index of efficiency of government policy in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our indices are in respect of 81 countries and cover the period from May 2020 to March 2021. Our framework assumes that...

This research is motivated by the fact that there is a paucity of research on the earnings management practices of banks in Australia. Research on the practices of North American, European and Asian banks provided conflicting evidence. In this study, we examine whether Australian banks engage in...

In this study, we examine factors associated with equity valuation in a newly emerging market, Turkey. In the United States and other developed countries, research indicates that both earnings and book value are important predictors of equity valuation. In Turkey, earnings appears to have...

This paper investigates how lenders react to borrowers’ rating changes under heterogeneous conditions and different regulatory regimes. Our findings suggest that corporate downgrades that increase capital requirements for lending banks under the Basel II framework are associated with increased...