IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dnb/dnbwpp/868.html

Systemic at Home: the Persistence of a Too-Big-to-Fail Premium in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Laura Deen
  • Daniel Dimitrov

Abstract

We quantify the implicit too-big-to-fail (TBTF) funding advantage of large Eu-ropean banks using CDS market data. Applying a reduced-form asset pricing frame-work, we decompose spreads into a fundamental credit-risk component and a resid-ual wedge attributable to implicit government support. We do not find evidence that G-SIB designation is associated with lower funding costs once bank funda-mentals and sovereign factors are taken into account. By contrast, banks whose assets exceed half of home-country GDP enjoy at least 30% lower credit spreads than those of otherwise comparable peers. A time-varying specification reveals that the TBTF wedge persists through 2024, and while average spreads are significantly lower across the board compared to the period around the Great Financial Crisis, the implicit bailout guarantee as a proportion of total spreads has not diminished in recent years. Moreover, the results suggest that the TBTF premium depends on sovereign fiscal strength: the funding advantage of systemic banks declines when home-sovereign CDS spreads rise. This points to Europe’s TBTF problem being primarily domestic in nature and relates to the strength of the home sovereign.

Suggested Citation

  • Laura Deen & Daniel Dimitrov, 2026. "Systemic at Home: the Persistence of a Too-Big-to-Fail Premium in Europe," Working Papers 868, DNB.
    • Handle: RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:868
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.dnb.nl/media/i3pf2v3a/working_paper_no-868.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dion Bongaerts & Frank De Jong & Joost Driessen, 2011. "Derivative Pricing with Liquidity Risk: Theory and Evidence from the Credit Default Swap Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 203-240, February.
    2. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Luis Garicano & Philip R. Lane & Marco Pagano & Ricardo Reis & Tano Santos & David Thesmar & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Dimitri Vayanos, 2016. "The Sovereign-Bank Diabolic Loop and ESBies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 508-512, May.
    3. Boyd, John H. & Heitz, Amanda, 2016. "The social costs and benefits of too-big-to-fail banks: A “bounding” exercise," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 251-265.
    4. Michiel Bijlsma & Jasper Lukkezen & Kristina Marinova, 2014. "Measuring too-big-to-fail funding advantages from small banks’ CDS spreads," CPB Discussion Paper 268, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Carlo Altavilla & Marco Pagano & Saverio Simonelli, 2017. "Bank Exposures and Sovereign Stress Transmission," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2103-2139.
    6. Patrick Augustin & Jan Schnitzler, 2021. "Disentangling types of liquidity and testing limits‐to‐arbitrage theories in the CDS–bond basis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 27(1), pages 120-146, January.
    7. Guillaume Horny & Simone Manganelli & Benoit Mojon, 2018. "Measuring Financial Fragmentation in the Euro Area Corporate Bond Market," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, October.
    8. Elijah Brewer & Julapa Jagtiani, 2013. "How Much Did Banks Pay to Become Too-Big-To-Fail and to Become Systemically Important?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 43(1), pages 1-35, February.
    9. Bai, Jennie & Wu, Liuren, 2016. "Anchoring Credit Default Swap Spreads to Firm Fundamentals," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(5), pages 1521-1543, October.
    10. M. Bijlsma & J.H.J. Lukkezen & K. Marinova, 2014. "Measuring too-big-to-fail funding advantages from small banks’ CDS spreads," Working Papers 14-03, Utrecht School of Economics.
    11. Michiel Bijlsma & Jasper Lukkezen & Kristina Marinova, 2014. "Measuring too-big-to-fail funding advantages from small banks’ CDS spreads," CPB Discussion Paper 268.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    12. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2012. "Collective Moral Hazard, Maturity Mismatch, and Systemic Bailouts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 60-93, February.
    13. Allen Berger & Sally Davies, 1998. "The Information Content of Bank Examinations," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 14(2), pages 117-144, October.
    14. Hansen, Bruce E., 1999. "Threshold effects in non-dynamic panels: Estimation, testing, and inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 345-368, December.
    15. Antje Berndt & Darrell Duffie & Yichao Zhu, 2025. "The Decline of Too Big to Fail," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 115(3), pages 945-974, March.
    16. Horváth, Bálint L. & Silva-Buston, Consuelo, 2026. "Expected bail-in costs, bank risk-taking and real effects," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    17. Thomas Barnebeck Andersen & Peter Sandholt Jensen, 2022. "Too Big to Fail and Moral Hazard: Evidence from an Epoch of Unregulated Commercial Banking," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 70(4), pages 808-830, December.
    18. Martin Hellwig, 2021. "Twelve Years after the Financial Crisis—Too-big-to-fail is still with us," Journal of Financial Regulation, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 175-187.
    19. Avino, Davide E. & Conlon, Thomas & Cotter, John, 2019. "Credit default swaps as indicators of bank financial distress," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 132-139.
    20. Nikolay Hristov & Oliver Hülsewig & Benedikt Kolb, 2026. "Bank Capital Regulation in the Euro Area and the Sovereign-Bank Nexus," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 22(1), pages 193-252, January.
    21. Bruce E. Hansen, 2000. "Sample Splitting and Threshold Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(3), pages 575-604, May.
    22. Viral Acharya & Itamar Drechsler & Philipp Schnabl, 2014. "A Pyrrhic Victory? Bank Bailouts and Sovereign Credit Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2689-2739, December.
    23. Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli & Huizinga, Harry, 2013. "Are banks too big to fail or too big to save? International evidence from equity prices and CDS spreads," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 875-894.
    24. Candelon, Bertrand & Luisi, Angelo & Roccazzella, Francesco, 2022. "Fragmentation in the European Monetary Union: Is it really over?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    25. Priyank Gandhi & Hanno Lustig, 2015. "Size Anomalies in U.S. Bank Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 733-768, April.
    26. Kim, Kwanho, 2017. "Liquidity basis between credit default swaps and corporate bonds markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 98-115.
    27. Andreas Barth & Isabel Schnabel, 2013. "Why banks are not too big to fail – evidence from the CDS market [Capital shortfall: a new approach to ranking and regulating systemic risks]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 28(74), pages 335-369.
    28. Acharya, Viral V. & Johnson, Timothy C., 2007. "Insider trading in credit derivatives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 110-141, April.
    29. Eero Tölö & Esa Jokivuolle & Matti Viren, 2021. "Have Too-Big-to-Fail Expectations Diminished? Evidence from the European Overnight Interbank Market," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 25-54, August.
    30. Ueda, Kenichi & Weder di Mauro, B., 2013. "Quantifying structural subsidy values for systemically important financial institutions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 3830-3842.
    31. repec:bla:ecpoli:v:28:y:2013:i:74:p:335-369 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Beverly Hirtle & Jose A. Lopez, 1999. "Supervisory information and the frequency of bank examinations," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 5(Apr), pages 1-20.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Zongyuan & Lai, Rose Neng, 2024. "Are “too big to fail” banks just different in size? – A study on systemic risk and stand-alone risk," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Benjamin Hippert & André Uhde & Sascha Tobias Wengerek, 2019. "Determinants of CDS trading on major banks," Working Papers Dissertations 51, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    3. Mäkinen, Taneli & Sarno, Lucio & Zinna, Gabriele, 2020. "Risky bank guarantees," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 490-522.
    4. Pavlos Almanidis & Mustafa U. Karakaplan & Levent Kutlu, 2019. "A dynamic stochastic frontier model with threshold effects: U.S. bank size and efficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 69-84, December.
    5. Böhm, Hannes & Eichler, Stefan, 2020. "Avoiding the fall into the loop: Isolating the transmission of bank-to-sovereign distress in the Euro Area," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    6. Daniel Dimitrov & Sweder van Wijnbergen, 2022. "Quantifying Systemic Risk in the Presence of Unlisted Banks: Application to the Dutch Financial Sector," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-034/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Dimitrov, Daniel & van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 2023. "Quantifying Systemic Risk in the Presence of Unlisted Banks: Application to the European Banking Sector," CEPR Discussion Papers 17992, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    8. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201512151482 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Bernadette A Minton & René M Stulz & Alvaro G Taboada, 2019. "Are the Largest Banks Valued More Highly?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(12), pages 4604-4652.
    10. Lei Zhao, 2018. "Market†based estimates of implicit government guarantees in European financial institutions," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 24(1), pages 79-112, January.
    11. Tölö, Eero & Jokivuolle, Esa & Viren, Matti, 2019. "Has banks' monitoring of other banks strengthened post-crisis? Evidence from the European overnight market," Research Discussion Papers 22/2019, Bank of Finland.
    12. Eero Tölö & Esa Jokivuolle & Matti Viren, 2021. "Have Too-Big-to-Fail Expectations Diminished? Evidence from the European Overnight Interbank Market," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 25-54, August.
    13. Jean-Loup, Soula, 2017. "Measuring heterogeneity in bank liquidity risk: Who are the winners and losers?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 302-313.
    14. Gündüz, Yalin, 2020. "The market impact of systemic risk capital surcharges," Discussion Papers 09/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    15. André Ebner & Christiane Westhoff, 2025. "Joining up prudential and resolution regulation for systemically important banks," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(4), pages 732-759, December.
    16. Naqvi, Hassan & Pungaliya, Raunaq, 2023. "Bank size and the transmission of monetary policy: Revisiting the lending channel," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    17. Marwan Alzoubi & Ayman Abdalmajeed Alsmadi & Hamad kasasbeh, 2022. "Systemically Important Bank: A Bibliometric Analysis for the Period of 2002 to 2022," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, December.
    18. Tölö, Eero & Jokivuolle, Esa & Virén, Matti, 2015. "Are too-big-to-fail banks history in Europe? Evidence from overnight interbank loans," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 29/2015, Bank of Finland.
    19. Cummings, James R. & Guo, Yilian, 2020. "Do the Basel III capital reforms reduce the implicit subsidy of systemically important banks? Australian evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    20. Tölö, Eero & Jokivuolle, Esa & Virén, Matti, 2015. "Are too-big-to-fail banks history in Europe? Evidence from overnight interbank loans," Research Discussion Papers 29/2015, Bank of Finland.
    21. Sascha Kolaric & Florian Kiesel & Steven Ongena, 2021. "Market Discipline through Credit Ratings and Too‐Big‐to‐Fail in Banking," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(2-3), pages 367-400, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • H81 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Governmental Loans; Loan Guarantees; Credits; Grants; Bailouts

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:868. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: DNB (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dnbgvnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.