Unemployment insurance in the United States is one of the fiscal risk-sharing mechanisms designed to mitigate the negative consequences of economic shocks. The system is based on complementary federal and state benefits, which behave very differently during normal and crisis periods. Thus,...

On 20 December 2020 the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) signed a Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) setting the terms on which trade relations between both areas will be based. This article describes the essential points of the agreement, in both the trade and financial areas,...

Sovereign spreads within the European Monetary Union (EMU) arise because markets price-in heterogeneous country fundamentals, but also re-denomination risks, given the incomplete nature of EMU. This creates a permanent risk of financial fragmentation within the area. In this paper we claim that...

Central bank liquidity lines have gained momentum since the global financial crisis as a crosscurrency liquidity management tool. We provide a complete timeline of the ECB liquidity line announcements and study their signalling and spillback effects. The announcement of an ECB euro liquidity...

The effective departure of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) opens up a new period of relations between the two areas. The current health crisis limits economic policies’ room for manoeuvre to accommodate the costs of transitioning to a new economic relationship, whatever...

The use of central bank liquidity lines has gained momentum since the global financial crisis in order to provide liquidity in foreign exchange markets, while at the same time preventing threats to financial stability and negative spillbacks. US dollar swap lines are well studied, but much less...