1. The founding of the Bank for International Settlements : a "commercial bank," or a "bank for central banks"? -- 2. The Bank for International Settlements and central banks during the 1930s : another anti-depression measure -- 3. On the eve of Bretton Woods : the BIS during World War II -- 4....

We find evidence of a bank lending channel for the euro area operating via bank risk. Financial innovation and the new ways to transfer credit risk have tended to diminish the informational content of standard bank balance-sheet indicators. We show that bank risk conditions, as perceived by...