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In the euro’s initial years, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain observed capital flow bonanzas and credit-booms, two cycles known to precede banking crises. Domestic banks fuelled those cycles via funding obtained from foreign financial institutions. Yet, these countries’ banking and financial crises have unfolded in different modes. In Ireland and Spain, credit-booms propelled real-estate bubbles, which dragged banks into crises, with governments’ accounts later being affected when rescuing banks (Spanish regional banks, and all Irish major banks). In Greece and Italy, extra monetary means perpetuated government imbalances (e.g. debt levels above 100% of GDP, large yearly deficits). More severely in Greece, banks were brought into crises by sovereign crises. In Portugal, a mixture of private and public sector–led crises have occurred. Our comparative study finds that these crises: (1) are connected to shocks and imbalances caused by dangerous banking sector cycles during the monetary integration process; (2) were not mere expansions of the US subprime crisis; (3) were not only caused by country-specific features and institutions; and (4) followed distinct paths, therefore, a uniform model encompassing all post-euro crises cannot exist.

In the domestic credit market creditor and debtor rights are clearly defined. In contrast, sovereign debt repayment is largely contingent on the debtor government’s willingness to repay as enforcement of contracts at the international level is limited. In this chapter we explore different sources of sovereign debt crises as opportunistic and myopic behavior by debtor nations, over-consumption of imported goods, credit temptation by lenders eager to allocate savings surpluses, and unexpected consequences of initially seen appropriate policies. We explore how these factors have played out in the Euro-debt crisis and outline a framework for creditor responsibility to complement debtor self-restraint.

In January 2011, during the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Jason Sterling, a hedge fund manager, was conducting online research to see if he could trade on any newsworthy information emerging from the summit. Sterling's fund traded primarily in sovereign debt, and he needed to figure out if European leaders would be able to come up with a viable solution to the crisis or whether the debt crisis would lead to the default of several European nations. He knew that if a solution was not found in the coming weeks, the sovereign debt markets could be thrown into turmoil.

The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that major credit rating agencies (CRAs) have been inconsistent in assessing the implications of monetary union membership for sovereign risks. It is frequently argued that CRAs have acted procyclically in their rating of sovereign debt in the European Monetary Union (EMU), underestimating sovereign risk in the early years and over-rating the lack of national monetary sovereignty since the onset of the Eurozone debt crisis. Yet, there is little direct evidence for this so far. While CRAs are quite explicit about their risk assessments concerning public debt that is denominated in foreign currency, the same cannot be said about their treatment of sovereign debt issued in the currency of a monetary union.

While CRAs are quite explicit about their risk assessments concerning public debt that is denominated in foreign currency, the same cannot be said about their treatment of sovereign debt issued in the currency of a monetary union. This paper examines the major CRAs’ methodologies for rating sovereign debt and test their sovereign credit ratings for a monetary union bonus in good times and a malus, akin to the “original sin” problem of emerging market countries, in bad times.

Using a newly compiled dataset of quarterly sovereign bond ratings from 1990 until 2012, the panel regression estimation results find strong evidence that EMU countries received a rating bonus on euro-denominated debt before the European debt crisis and a large penalty after 2010.

The crisis has brought to light that EMU countries’ euro-denominated debt may not be considered as local currency debt from a rating perspective after all.

In addition to quantifying the local currency bonus and malus, this paper shows the fundamental problem of rating sovereign debt of monetary union members and provide approaches to estimating it over time.

This chapter analyzes the rules and institutions that have characterized the European Monetary Union (EMU) during its prolonged crisis, stressing the limits of the strategy pursued by the European authorities. It also examines the issues of current account imbalances, economic growth and the problem of debt, and their interconnections. The main purpose of this chapter is to indicate feasible economic solutions and political arrangements in order to complete the institutional system of the EMU. This requires appropriate reforms of its institutional architecture. But such reforms demand changes in the treaties in order to make the Eurosystem more consistent and endowed of democratic legitimacy, so to have appropriate tools, resources and policies that can contribute to the stability, cohesion and development of the Eurozone.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the co-movements between the Portuguese, Greek, Irish and German government bond markets after the subprime crisis (2007 to 2013), with a special focus on the European sovereign debt crisis. It aims to assess the existence of contagion between the Portuguese, Greece and Irish bond markets and to explore the phenomenon of flight-to-quality from the Portuguese and Greek bond markets to the German market.

The analysis is undertaken using a DCC-GARCH model with daily data for 10-year yield government bonds. The change in correlation from the stable periods to the crisis periods is used to identify contagion or flight-to-quality.

Results suggest that there was contagion between the Greek and Portuguese markets, and to a lesser extent between the Irish and Portuguese markets. During most of the identified crisis periods, there are evident flight-to-quality flows from the Portuguese and Greek bond markets to the German market.

This paper contributes to the literature by applying the methodology DCC-GARCH to several crisis episodes for the analysis of contagion and flight-to-quality during the European sovereign debt crisis.

Recently the world economy was confronted to the worst financial crisis since the great depression. This unprecedented crisis started in mid-2007 had a huge impact on the European government bond market. But what are the main drivers of this “perfect storm” that since 2009 affects EU government bond market as well? To answer this question, we propose an empirical study of the determinants of the sovereign bond spreads of EU countries with respect to Germany during the period 2003–2010. Technically, we address two main questions. First, we ask what share of the change in sovereign bond spreads is explained by changes in the fundamentals, liquidity, and market risks. Second, we distinguish between EU member states within and outside the Euro area and question whether long-term determinants of spreads affect EU members uniformly. To these ends, we employ panel data techniques in a regression model where spreads to Germany (with virtually no default risk) are explained by set of traditional variables and a number of policy variables. Results reveal that large fiscal deficits and public debt as well as political risks and to a lesser extent the liquidity are likely to put substantial upward pressures on sovereign bond yields in many advanced European economies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate credit rationing across firms in euro zone countries, as it relates to its own sovereign credit ratings.

The authors utilize firm-level data from the Survey on Access to Finance of Enterprises for the period 2009-2013 conducted by the European Central Bank.

A negative association between the rating of sovereign creditworthiness and credit rationing is identified, while credit rationing varies substantially even among countries with the highest quality of sovereign bonds. Credit rationing is lower in sovereigns with high-quality ratings and higher in sovereigns near default. These results remain intact when fundamental firm characteristics (e.g. firm’s age and size, sector of economic activity, financial situation, etc.) are taken into consideration. This indicates that the interconnection of sovereign debt risk with domestic credit market outcomes is robust.

The present study contributes to the relevant literature by performing a detailed analysis of credit rationing for euro zone SMEs and by exploring the link between sovereign credit rating and credit rationing during the sovereign debt crisis period.

A hedge-fund strategist had two decisions to make. First, what was the path of core euro zone long-term interest rates likely to be over the next year? Was the dramatic decline in German long rates over the past few years an aberration that would soon be reversed, or was it part of the “new normal” that would persist for some time? Second, how would periphery long rates evolve relative to core rates? That is—the spread between long rates in the likes of Greece, Spain, and Ireland and those in Germany—how would they evolve over the next year? Was the dramatic divergence in euro zone long rates likely to persist, or would the coming year see a continuation of the modest reconvergence that has occurred since mid–2012? He knew many factors influenced long-term interest rates; he would have to use his entire toolkit to address this issue. The evidence was in no way clear-cut. Some factors pointed toward lower German rates, some toward higher, some toward a widening of euro zone spreads (even a dissolution of the euro zone as we know it?), and some toward reconvergence.