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ECB policy and Eurozone fragility: Was De Grauwe right?

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  • Saka, Orkun
  • Fuertes, Ana-Maria
  • Kalotychou, Elena

Abstract

Paul De Grauwe's Eurozone fragility hypothesis states that sovereign debt markets in a monetary union without a lender-of-last-resort are vulnerable to self-fulfilling dynamics fuelled by pessimistic investor sentiment that can trigger default. We test this contention by applying an eclectic methodology to a two-year window around Mario Draghi's “whatever-it-takes” pledge that can be understood as the implicit announcement of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program. A principal components analysis reveals that the perceived commonality in default risk among peripheral and core Eurozone sovereigns increased after the announcement. An event study reveals significant pre-announcement news transmission from Spain to Italy, France, Belgium and Austria that clearly dissipates post-announcement. Country-specific regressions of CDS spreads on systematic risk factors reveal frequent days of large adverse shocks affecting simultaneously those five Eurozone countries, but only during the pre-announcement period. Altogether these findings support the fragility hypothesis and endorse the OMT program.

Suggested Citation

  • Saka, Orkun & Fuertes, Ana-Maria & Kalotychou, Elena, 2015. "ECB policy and Eurozone fragility: Was De Grauwe right?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 168-185.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:54:y:2015:i:c:p:168-185
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2015.03.002
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sovereign debt; Eurozone fragility; Self-fulfilling dynamics; European Central Bank; Outright Monetary Transactions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection

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