This article examines the macroeconomic implications of critical dependencies in the euro area, the United States and China. Using a data-driven approach, it identifies products for which countries rely heavily on a small number of foreign suppliers for their imports in strategic sectors, such as health, energy and digital technologies.
Using a novel worldwide dataset of 5,264 syndicated loans issued to 329 firms from 2006 to 2021, we study how climate-related litigation risk affects firm’s cost of borrowing. We find robust empirical evidence that firms targeted by climate lawsuits pay significantly higher spreads on their bank loans. These effects are more pronounced for firms with weaker environmental performance and higher ESG controversies. The results suggest that lender’s view climate litigation as a material risk factor, which is increasingly priced into debt contracts.
Using a novel worldwide dataset of 5,264 syndicated loans issued to 329 firms from 2006 to 2021, we study how climate-related litigation risk affects firm’s cost of borrowing. We find robust empirical evidence that firms targeted by climate lawsuits pay significantly higher spreads on their bank loans. These effects are more pronounced for firms with weaker environmental performance and higher ESG controversies. The results suggest that lender’s view climate litigation as a material risk factor, which is increasingly priced into debt contracts.
Unwarranted heterogeneity in O-SII buffer levels across the European banking union may have adverse consequences for financial stability and the level playing field in the banking market. Analysis of national buffer-setting yields evidence of heterogeneity which does not result from differences in the size, concentration and funding structure of the domestic banking systems. From a banking union perspective, buffer-setting by national authorities results in heterogeneity at both the upper and the lower end of the distribution of a bank’s systemic relevance.
Capital buffers for other systemically important institutions (O-SIIs) are set by national authorities. They vary greatly across the EU Member States participating in the banking union. On 1 January 2025 the ECB started using an enhanced floor methodology to assess national O-SII buffer decisions. This methodology adopts a banking union (BU) perspective to address “too-big-to-fail”-related risks at the BU level. The aim is to reduce the heterogeneity in O-SII buffers and achieve a more consistent treatment of the most systemically important institutions.
Kiwoong Byun, Baeho Kim, and Dong Hwan OhThis study examines the market-implied premiums for bearing systemic credit risk by analyzing credit derivatives on the CDX North American Investment Grade portfolio from September 2005 to March 2021. We construct systemic credit risk premium (SCRP) as the difference between the observed prices of multi-name super-senior tranches and their synthetic counterparts valued from historical asset correlations implied by single-name CDS spreads.
Ben Knox and Yannick TimmerWe study investors’ perceptions of inflation through the lens of a high-frequency event study, documenting they have a stagflationary view of the world. In response to higher-than-expected inflation, investors expect firms’ nominal cash flows to remain stagnant while discount rates increase, resulting in lower stock prices.
Vihar Dalal, Daniel A. Dias, and Pinar UysalThis paper uses a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model—identified with an external monetary policy instrument and sign restrictions—to derive a measure of bank credit conditions from changes in bank lending standards. The model incorporates data on interest rates, bank credit, and survey-based measures of bank lending standards to identify monetary policy, credit demand, and credit supply shocks.
Nina Boyarchenko, Kinda Hachem, and Anya KleymenovaA large literature at the intersection of economics and finance offers prescriptions for regulating banks to increase financial stability. This literature abstracts from the discretion that accounting standards give banks over financial reporting, creating a gap between the information assumed to be available to regulators in models of optimal regulation and the information available to regulators in reality.
We introduce an estimated medium scale Heterogeneous-Agent New Keynesian model for forecasting and policy analysis in the Euro Area and discuss the applications of this type of models in central banks, focusing on two main exercises. First, we examine an alternative scenario for monetary policy during the early 2020s inflationary episode, showing that earlier hikes in interest rates would have affected more strongly households at the lower end of the wealth distribution, whose consumption our model suggests was already depressed relative to the rest of the population.
