We estimate the ‘fundamental’ component of euro area sovereign bond yield spreads, i.e. the part of bond spreads that can be justified by country-specific economic factors, euro area economic fundamentals, and international influences. The yield spread decomposition is achieved using a...

We examine the international effects of adverse loan supply and aggregate demand shocks originating in the euro area and the U.S.A. For that purpose, we use a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model and isolate disturbances stemming from loan supply from those of four other macroeconomic...

This paper focuses on the private credit flow-to-GDP ratio for measuring and comparing the degree of banking intermediation, which complements the widely used stock-flow measure. The authors find that, on the basis of this flow-flow measure, the current degree of banking intermediation in most...

This paper provides a fi rst stocktaking of the available data on the fi nancial situation and the fi nancing of nonfi nancial corporations (NFCs) in the ten new EU Member States (NMS-10). It focuses on comparing the situation in the NMS-10 with the status quo in the euro area. For most...

In this paper we review the developments of prices in the Central and Eastern European EU accession countries between 1990 and 2001. The paper starts with an analysis of the short-term and long-term (dis)inflation dynamics. This is complemented by an appraisal of price level convergence. The...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative stock-taking exercise of recent banking sector developments in four current EU candidate countries (CC-4), namely the two acceding countries Bulgaria and Romania and the two negotiating candidates Croatia and Turkey. The paper finds that a...