TLTRO III and banks' loan book rebalancing during the pandemic: less 'targeted' than intended for some?

Targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs)helped supporting bank lending to firms and to households in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of TLTRO funding for mortgage loans to households had explicitly not been included into the targeted loan categories of these schemes, thereby, limiting potential unintended side effects on residential real estate markets. This paper, by means of an empirical analysis, assesses the impact of the relaxation of TLTRO III conditions at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic on euro area banks' loan portfolio composition.

Banking in the negative: a vector error correction analysis of bank-specific lending and deposit rates

We analyze the impact of negative reference rates on the interest rate behavior of more than 500 Austrian banks from 2009Q1 to 2021Q4. Using panel vector error correction analysis with the Engle-Granger procedure in two steps, we establish a cointegration vector that links bank-specific lending rates, deposit rates, the 3-month Euribor, and the ECB Deposit Facility Rate. We propose two hypotheses to evaluate the effects of negative 3-month Euribor on this vector.

Theft, daydreaming and everything in between: most of us are a bit ‘deviant’ at work

We usually think of workplace deviance as linked to “bad apples”–the troublemakers who egregiously slack off, steal from the company or openly clash with coworkers. But what if deviant behaviour was also more subtle–daydreaming, taking long coffee breaks or cracking an edgy joke in a meeting? It turns out most employees engage in quieter patterns of minor misbehaviours, and it’s changing how we think about deviance on the job.

Fiscal requirements for price stability when households are not Ricardian

Are restrictions on fiscal policy necessary for monetary policy to be able to deliver price stability? When households are Ricardian, the net present value of future fiscal surpluses needs to equate the real value of government debt absent inflation. We show that when households are not Ricardian, fiscal requirements still exist but take the very different form of a limit on the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Putting countries on the cap? Pastoral visits of John Paul II and international trade

During his reign from 1979 to 2005, Pope John Paul II visited 129 countries, more than the 263 Popes before him combined. I document a significant increase in exports to trading partners with a relatively high share of Catholics following a Pastoral visit, leading to a non-negligible increase in aggregate exports. The biggest beneficiaries in terms of increased trade are visited countries that are at lower stages of economic development and have relatively few Catholics and weak trade links.

Pages

Subscribe to Front page feed