European Central Bank

Higher-order exposures

08/11/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

Traditional exposure measures focus on direct exposures to evaluate the losses an institution is exposed to upon the default of a counterparty. Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, the importance of indirect exposures via common asset holdings is increasingly recognized. Yet direct and indirect exposures do not to capture the losses that result from shock propagation and amplification following the counterparty's default. In this paper, we introduce the concept of \higher-order exposures" to refer to these spill-over losses and propose a way to formalize and quantify these.

Riding the rate wave: interest rate and run risks in euro area banks during the 2022-2023 monetary cycle

08/07/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

Add full abstract text in one paragraph.This paper examines how the ECB’s 2022–2023 interest-rate hikes affected euro-area banks’ economic net worth and vulnerability to deposit runs. Drawing on granular, confidential data for 139 banks, we estimate each bank’s economic net worth and find that unrealised losses on loans and bonds averaged around 30 per cent of equity. By September 2023, however, roughly half of these losses had been offset by gains from the deposit franchise and interest-rate swaps.

Impacts of ESG banking regulation on financing new sustainable technologies

08/07/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

How does environmental, social and governance regulation of banks affect capital provision to the sustainability transition? As ambitious sustainability targets face funding challenges, the financial sector is tasked with channeling more private capital into sustainable investments. However, scaling sustainable technologies often requires investment in non-ESG-compliant assets. The mobility transition to electric vehicles, for example, demands increased supply of battery raw materials like Lithium, Cobalt, Manganese, and Nickel.

Bank lending implications of climate stress tests

08/06/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

Do climate stress tests affect bank credit supply to brown firms? Using a difference-in-differences approach and detailed data on individual bank loans in the euro area, this paper provides novel evidence on the effects of the ECB’s 2022 climate risk stress test. Despite no capital implications or public disclosures, participating banks significantly reduced credit to greenhouse gas-intensive industries relative to nonparticipants. Among affected firms, smaller borrowers were more negatively impacted.

The impact of climate litigation risk on firms’ cost of bank loans

08/05/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

Using a novel worldwide dataset of 5,264 syndicated loans issued to 329 firms from 2006 to 2021, we study how climate-related litigation risk affects firm’s cost of borrowing. We find robust empirical evidence that firms targeted by climate lawsuits pay significantly higher spreads on their bank loans. These effects are more pronounced for firms with weaker environmental performance and higher ESG controversies. The results suggest that lender’s view climate litigation as a material risk factor, which is increasingly priced into debt contracts.

Beyond averages: heterogeneous effects of monetary policy in a HANK model for the euro area

08/04/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

We introduce an estimated medium scale Heterogeneous-Agent New Keynesian model for forecasting and policy analysis in the Euro Area and discuss the applications of this type of models in central banks, focusing on two main exercises. First, we examine an alternative scenario for monetary policy during the early 2020s inflationary episode, showing that earlier hikes in interest rates would have affected more strongly households at the lower end of the wealth distribution, whose consumption our model suggests was already depressed relative to the rest of the population.

Hand-to-mouth banks: deposit inflows and the marginal propensity to lend

08/04/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

In modern macroeconomics, the marginal propensity to consume out of transitory income shocks is a central object of interest. This paper empirically explores a parallel concept in banking: the marginal propensity to lend out of unsolicited deposit inflows (MPLD). Using county-level dividend payouts as an instrument for deposit inflows, I estimate the MPLD for U.S. banks and show that before QE, the average bank operated “hand-to-mouth” — it transformed approximately every dollar of deposit inflow into new loans, consistent with tight liquidity constraints.

Climate change, firms, and aggregate productivity

07/30/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

This paper uses a general equilibrium framework to examine the effects of temperature on firm-level demand, productivity, and input allocation efficiency, deriving an aggregate damage function for climate change. Using data from Italian firms and detailed climate data, it uncovers a sizable negative effect of extreme temperatures on firm-level productivity and revenue-based marginal product of capital.

Back to school when times are bad? The role of housing wealth

07/30/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

College enrolment typically rises during recessions. This paper demonstrates that housing wealth destruction dampened this countercyclical effect in areas most affected by the U.S. housing bust of 2008-2011. By combining household data with a mortgage credit register and housing price data, we reveal that negative shocks to housing wealth significantly reduced college enrolment among homeowners relative to renters during this period. Up to 2% of the local college-age population did not pursue college enrolment at the height of the bust due to housing wealth destruction.

From words to deeds – incorporating climate risks into sovereign credit ratings

07/29/2025 European Central Bank Central banks

We investigate the impact of climate risks on sovereign credit ratings worldwide. Our analysis shows that higher temperature anomalies and more frequent natural disasters – measures of physical risk – correlate with lower credit ratings. We find that long-term shifts in climate patterns (“chronic risk”) primarily affect advanced economies, while the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events (“acute risk”) matters more for emerging economies. However, the estimated impact of both types of risk on credit ratings is low and the economic effects are negligible.

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