Sovereign-bank Nexus Research Articles

Unconventional Monetary Policy Shocks in the Euro Area and the Sovereign-Bank Nexus

We explore the effects of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy on the banks’ sovereign debt portfolios. In particular, using panel vector autoregressive (VAR) models we analyze whether banks increased their domestic government bond holdings in response to non-standard monetary policy shocks, thereby possibly promoting the sovereign-bank nexus, i.e. the exposure of banks to the debt issued by the national government. Our results suggest that euro area crisis countries’ banks enlarged their exposure to domestic sovereign debt after innovations related to unconventional monetary policy. Moreover, the restructuring of sovereign debt portfolios was characterized by a home bias.

Unconventional Monetary Policy Shocks in the Euro Area and the Sovereign-Bank Nexus

We explore the effects of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy on the banks’ sovereign debt portfolios. In particular, using panel vector autoregressive (VAR) models we analyze whether banks increased their domestic government bond holdings in response to non-standard monetary policy shocks, thereby possibly promoting the sovereign-bank nexus, i.e. the exposure of banks to the debt issued by the national government. Our results suggest that euro area crisis countries’ banks enlarged their exposure to domestic sovereign debt after innovations related to unconventional monetary policy. Moreover, the restructuring of sovereign debt portfolios was characterized by a home bias.

Reforming the Regulatory Treatment of Sovereign Exposures in Banking Regulation

Abstract The European sovereign debt crisis has shown the tight linkage between sovereign and bank balance sheets. In the aftermath of the crisis, several reforms have been discussed in order to mitigate the sovereign-bank nexus. These reforms include the abolishment of preferential government bond treatment in banking regulation. This paper gives a detailed overview of literature and data which are closely related to the existing preferential sovereign bond treatment in bank regulation and highlights the need for reforms especially in the euro area. Against this background, the following three regulatory reforms are described and discussed: (i) positive risk weights for government bonds in bank capital regulation, (ii) sovereign exposure limits, and (iii) haircuts for government bonds in bank liquidity regulation. The discussion focusses on the effects of these reforms for bank behaviour and financial stability. JEL Classification: H63, H12, G11, G18

A non-linear analysis of the sovereign bank nexus in the EU

We investigate the time varying dynamics of the linkages between sovereign and bank default risks over the period 2006–2015, using the credit default swap (CDS) spreads of the bonds of major banks and sovereign issuers in the EMU. The nexus between bank risk in core countries and sovereign risk of peripheral countries is also analyzed and found to be relevant. The use of a time-varying regime switching analysis, the STCC-GARCH, identifies the asymmetric impact of the economic variables behind the state shifts, the so-called “transition variables”. This approach also dates both the positive shifts in the size of the nexus that are due to financial shocks (viz. the Lehman crisis, the evolution of the Greek crisis) and the negative shifts that follow the implementation of unconventional monetary policy measures.

The European Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive: A market assessment

This paper provides evidence of the impact of the new European bank resolution regime on the sovereign-bank nexus. The implementation of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) is considered as an exogenous shock which provides the setting for a natural experiment. This investigation tests the financial markets’ perception of the effectiveness of the new rules in weakening the tight interconnectedness between sovereign and bank risk. A Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach is adopted, building evidence from the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market for banks and non-financial corporates over the period 2011-18. The main findings do not indicate a significant weakening in the interaction between bank and sovereign CDS spreads, compared to the corresponding evidence for the non-financial corporate sector. An overall narrowing of the gap between bank and sovereign risk occurs, which initially implies a lack of credibility of the BRRD in financial markets. However, substantial cross-country variations are identified, particularly for Italy and non-euro area countries. These insights make a significant contribution to the policy debate on effective regulation of the sovereign-bank nexus, in the light of recent developments in the EU post-crisis reform agenda.

Past and Present of EMU Reform

Euro area reform has been at the center of much needed discussions throughout recent years. The Euro area crisis has made it clear that significant vulnerabilities still exist in the current architecture of the European Monetary Union. This has opened an intellectual and policy debate on how to make the EMU more crisis-resilient and whether the Euro area requires more risk-sharing or more market discipline to this end. Along these lines, numerous proposals have been presented by institutions and academics such as the introduction of a common fiscal policy instrument, possible reforms of the current fiscal rules, the creation of a Euro area safe asset to break the sovereign-bank nexus and a common European Deposit Insurance Scheme. This policy brief summarizes the discussions and policy proposals for EMU reform of recent years. After intensive debates, the necessary consensus was not found and no significant breakthrough on EMU reform has been achieved to reinforce the ability of the monetary union to withstand future crises. These intellectual discussions have however laid the groundwork for finding the right answers at the particular moment in the future when political compromises will make it feasible to strengthen the Euro area in a healthy and efficient manner.

The sovereign-bank nexus in peripheral euro area: Further evidence from contingent claims analysis

New evidence is presented on the nexus between the sovereign and banking sector risk. Applying the contingent claims methodology to the peripheral euro area countries over the 2004Q4-2013Q2 period, we build indicators of sovereign and bank risk and assess their interconnection in comparison with existing market-based indicators of bank and sovereign distress. We use three different statistical measures of interdependence based on principal components analysis, Granger causality framework and Diebold-Yilmaz’s connectedness index. The empirical results show strong interconnection and co-movement between country-level banking and sovereign risk indicators. We also find evidence of bi-directional bank-sovereign causal linkages only for Spain during the European sovereign debt crisis period. For the late crisis period, we detect weak interrelationship and more divergence across the various risk indicators. Our findings indicate that secondary and derivatives market indices are more driven by common underlying factors than are contingent claim based risk measures. Finally, our results also suggest that market participants risk appetite was the main channel of risk transmission between sovereigns and banks for the countries under study during the sample period.

Delay determinants of European Banking Union implementation

Most countries in the European Union (EU) delay the transposition of European Commission (EC) directives, which aim at reforming banking supervision, resolution, and deposit insurance. We compile a systematic overview of these delays to investigate if they result from strategic considerations of governments conditional on the state of their financial, regulatory, and political systems. Transposition delays pertaining to the three Banking Union directives differ considerably across the 28 EU members. Bivariate regression analyses suggest that existing national bank regulation and supervision drive delays the most. Political factors are less relevant. These results are qualitatively insensitive to alternative estimation methods and lag structures. Multivariate analyses highlight that well-stocked deposit insurance schemes speed-up the implementation of capital requirements, banking systems with many banks are slower in implementing new bank rescue and resolution rules, and countries with a more intensive sovereign-bank nexus delay the harmonization of EU deposit insurance more.

The multi-country transmission of sovereign and banking risk: a spatial vector autoregressive approach

ABSTRACTThis paper develops a spatial vector autoregressive (SpVAR) model to investigate the transmission of sovereign, banking and corporate default risks among 11 Eurozone countries for the period January 2008–December 2013. The results show that a significant proportion of default risk variation is explained by foreign shocks. However, the cross-border sovereign–bank nexus is statistically significant, but economically moderate. Among the three sectors, shocks to the banking sector play the most critical role. On average, for the 11 countries, a foreign banking shock can explain 7%, 23% and 18% of the forecast error variance of changes in sovereign, banking and corporate credit default swap spreads respectively.

Bankss Home-Bias in Government Bonds Holdings: Will the Supply of ESBies Create Its Own Demand?

The bank literature has documented theoretical and empirical evidence of a “diabolic loop” in the sovereign-bank nexus. Banks have a concentrated risk exposure in domestic government bonds. In the European banking union, this has led to a proposal to create European safe bonds, ESBies, which would facilitate geographical sovereign diversification, hence contributing to bank stability. But will a supply of ESBies create its own demand? The paper offers two new explanations for the home bias in banks’ government bond holdings: a sovereign-based rating cap on banks and the existence of a ‘bank tax’. These are complementary to the three explanations mentioned in the literature: risk shifting, a gamble for resurrection and moral suasion. Collectively, they cast doubt on a demand-led approach to developing a market for safe sovereign-bond backed securities.

The regulatory response to the sovereign-bank nexus

The regulatory response to the global financial crisis has been swift and energetic. There is by now a widespread consensus that the pre-crisis regulatory environment was too lax and that banking supervision had been too weak. Much progress has been made to date in individual areas, ranging from the Dodd–Frank Act in the United States to the CRD-IV and the establishment of the banking union with common supervision in the euro area and the Basel III regulations at the international level. And banks have responded to these regulatory initiatives and associated market pressures by substantially raising capital ratios…

Romania: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Technical Note-Macroprudential Policy Framework and Tools

This Technical Note analyzes the implementation of macroprudential policy framework and tools in Romania. The National Bank of Romania (NBR) has a long experience in implementing macroprudential policy measures. The NBR monitors several indicators to assess the build-up of systemic risk, many of which are derived from the nation-wide credit register and related data sources. The institutional framework for macroprudential policymaking has recently been revised and contains a clear mandate and well-defined objectives, but NBR’s role seems constrained. It is recommended that the macroprudential policy toolkit should be strengthened further to address risks identified in the Financial Sector Assessment Program’s risk analysis. The systemic risk buffer should be calibrated carefully to address risks stemming from the strong sovereign-bank nexus.

The state dependent impact of bank exposure on sovereign risk

Abstract The theoretical literature remains inconclusive on whether changes in bank exposure to the domestic sovereign have an adverse effect on the sovereign risk position through a diabolic loop in the sovereign-bank nexus, or reduce perceived default risk by acting as a disciplinary device for the sovereign. In this paper we empirically analyze the impact of exogenous changes in bank exposure on the risk position of the sovereign within a Markov switching structural vector autoregressive in heteroscedasticity (MSH-SVAR) framework for a set of EMU countries. We add to the methodological literature by allowing for regime dependent shock transmissions according to the volatility state of the financial system. Finding support for both, a stabilizing and a destabilizing effect, we document a clear clustering among the country sample: rising bank exposure increased default risk for the EMU periphery, but decreased credit risk for the core EMU countries during times of financial stress.

The State Dependent Impact of Bank Exposure on Sovereign Risk

The theoretical literature remains inconclusive on whether changes in bank exposure towards the domestic sovereign have an adverse effect on the sovereign risk position via a diabolic loop in the sovereign-bank nexus or reduce perceived default risk by acting as a disciplinary device for the sovereign. In this paper we empirically analyze the impact of exogenous changes in bank exposure on the risk position of the sovereign within a Markov switching structural vector autoregressive in heteroscedasticity (MSH-SVAR) framework for a set of EMU countries. We add to the methodological literature by allowing for regime dependent shock transmissions according to the volatility state of the financial system. Finding support for both, a stabilizing and a destabilizing effect, we document a clear clustering among the country sample: Rising bank exposure increased default risk for the EMU periphery, but decreased credit risk for the core EMU countries during times of financial stress.

The Impact of Unconventional Monetary Policy on the Sovereign Bank Nexus within and Across EU Countries. A Time-Varying Conditional Correlation Analysis

We investigate the time varying dynamics of the linkages between sovereign and bank default risks over the period 2006-2015, using the credit default swap (CDS) spreads of the bonds of major international banks and of sovereign issuers as indicators of risk within four major European countries. The nexus between bank risk in core countries and sovereign risk of peripheral countries is also analyzed, under the hypothesis that higher bond yields and preferential treatment of bond issued by euro sovereigns under Basle II may have favored the stocking of peripheral sovereign bonds in core bank portfolios. The use of a time-varying regime switching correlation analysis, the STCC-GARCH, allows to identify the economic variable behind the state shifts, the so-called “transition variable”, and to date precisely the changes in the size of the correlations that are due to shocks (viz. the Lehman crisis, the evolution of the Greek crisis) or to unconventional monetary policies such as Quantitative Easing and TLTRO.

Demand for Sovereign Bonds in the Periphery: A Regime-Switching Approach

The rise in sovereign bond holdings in stress countries could deepen a recession by allocating resources away from the private sector. Our paper investigates whether the demand function for sovereign bonds changed in the crisis period and the causes of such a change. We show that it did, and that bond holdings rose more than they would have in normal times given a set of fundamentals. However, we find this happened only for a short span of time, and similar behavior by OFIs suggests that the 0 risk weight on sovereign bond holdings was not the cause. Instead, sovereign stress is the likely driver: policies aimed at lowering the sovereign-bank nexus should target sovereign stress.

Regulierungsvorschriften für europäische Staatsanleihen und ihre Wirkung

Die regulatorische Vorzugsbehandlung von Staatsanleihen steht zunehmend in der Kritik. Banken mussen fur die staatlichen Verbindlichkeiten nach wie vor kein Eigenkapital vorhalten, und Restriktionen fur Groskredite gibt es nicht. Diese Sonderbehandlung privilegiert die staatlichen Glaubiger und provoziert Fehlanreize in der Kapitalallokation der Banken: Klumpenrisiken sind die Folge. Die Autoren sprechen sich dafur aus, den intensiven Risikoverbund zwischen Banken und Staaten zu beenden oder zumindest substanziell abzubauen.