Using daily data for the euro area, the paper estimates demand equations for reserves held by commercial banks at the central bank. The presence of the expected overnight rate among the regressors allows to gauge the announcement effect, the ability by the central bank to influence the current...

The outbreak of the financial crisis coincided with a sharp increase of worldwide interbank interest rates. We analyze the micro and macroeconomic determinants of this phenomenon, finding that before August 2007 interbank rates were insensitive to borrower characteristics, whereas afterwards...