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Data show that sovereign risk reduces liquidity, increases funding cost and risk of banks highly exposed to it. I build a model that rationalizes this fact. Banks act as delegated monitors and invest in risky projects and in risky sovereign bonds. As investors hear rumors of increased sovereign risk, they run the bank (via global games). Banks could rollover liquidity in repo market using government bonds as collateral, but as sovereign risk raises collateral values shrink. Overall banks’ liquidity falls (its cost increases) and so does banks’ credit. In this context noisy news (announcements with signal extraction) of consolidation policies are recessionary in the short run, as they contribute to investors and banks pessimism, and mildly expansionary in the medium run. The banks liquidity channel plays a major role in the fiscal transmission.
Does austerity pay off?
(2014)
Policy makers often implement austerity measures when the sustainability of public finances is in doubt and, hence, sovereign yield spreads are high. Is austerity successful in bringing about a reduction in yield spreads? We employ a new panel data set which contains sovereign yield spreads for 31 emerging and advanced economies and estimate the effects of cuts of government consumption on yield spreads and economic activity. The conditions under which austerity takes place are crucial. During times of fiscal stress, spreads rise in response to the spending cuts, at least in the short-run. In contrast, austerity pays off, if conditions are more benign.
Using novel monthly data for 226 euro-area banks from 2007 to 2015, we investigate the determinants of changes in banks’ sovereign exposures and their effects during and after the crisis. First, public, bailed out and poorly capitalized banks responded to sovereign stress by purchasing domestic public debt more than other banks, with public banks’ purchases growing especially in coincidence with the largest ECB liquidity injections. Second, bank exposures significantly amplified the transmission of risk from the sovereign and its impact on lending. This amplification of the impact on lending does not appear to arise from spurious correlation or reverse causality.
Euro area data show a positive connection between sovereign and bank risk, which increases with banks’ and sovereign long run fragility. We build a macro model with banks subject to moral hazard and liquidity risk (sudden deposit withdrawals): banks invest in risky government bonds as a form of capital buffer against liquidity risk. The model can replicate the positive connection between sovereign and bank risk observed in the data. Central bank liquidity policy, through full allotment policy, is successful in stabilizing the spiraling feedback loops between bank and sovereign risk.
Euro area data show a positive connection between sovereign and bank risk, which increases with banks’ and sovereign long run fragility. We build a macro model with banks subject to incentive problems and liquidity risk (in the form of liquidity based banks’ runs) which provides a link between endogenous bank capital and macro and policy risk. Our banks also invest in risky government bonds used as capital buffer to self-insure against liquidity risk. The model can replicate the positive connection between sovereign and bank risk observed in the data. Central bank liquidity policy, through full allotment policy, is successful in stabilizing the spiraling feedback loops between bank and sovereign risk.