This study examines which financial stability responsibilities have been delegated to central banks (CBs), how these responsibilities are executed, and whether democratic accountability arrangements are in place. The results of our survey among all CBs in the OECD area suggest that there is no unambiguous definition of financial stability or systemic risk, and that, generally, the responsibility for financial stability is not explicitly formulated in laws. Moreover, there is considerable heterogeneity in the way CBs pursue the financial stability objective. Our results also suggest that the democratic accountability of the financial stability function of central banks is often poorly arranged.

We investigate the effects of the announcement and the disclosure of the clarification, methodology, and outcomes of the U.S. banking stress tests on banks’ equity prices, credit risk, systematic risk, and systemic risk. We find evidence that stress tests have moved stock and credit markets following the disclosure of stress test results. We also find that banks’ systematic risk, as measured by betas, declined in nearly all years after the publication of stress test results. Our evidence suggests that stress tests affect systemic risk.

Using a newly constructed database for 26 countries over 2000-2014, we analyze cross-country and within-country differences in mortgage arrears. We find that restrictive macro-prudential policies, in particular lower regulatory loan-to-value ratios, are significantly associated with a lower share of mortgage arrears in total residential debt. Likewise, better institutions are related with lower delinquency rates, both directly and by enhancing the impact of macro-prudential policies and the right to recourse. We also find that the effect of macro-prudential policies is conditioned by several mortgage market characteristics, such as the maturity of loans, interest rate fixity, and tax deductibility of interest payments.

We analyze three databases of banking crises and investigate their consistency in the identification and timing of crises. We find that there are large and statistically significant discrepancies between the datasets. We also compare the dating of banking crises according to these databases using information on the number and size of bank failures for four crises for which the timing strongly differs across these databases. We conclude that information on these variables allows determining the timing of banking crises more precisely. Our dating of the four crises corresponds closely with that of Laeven and Valencia.

It has been argued that central bank independence (CBI) may not only be beneficial for reaching the objective of price stability, but also for maintaining financial stability. Greater independence from external pressure implies that central banks are less politically constrained in acting to prevent financial distress, while it also will allow them to act earlier and more decisively when a crisis erupts. We estimate the relation between CBI and a newly constructed measure of financial instability using a dynamic panel model for the period 1985–2005 with a large set of control variables. We find a significant and robust negative relation between CBI and financial instability, which is mostly due to political independence.

Between 1996 and 2005 the number of central banks that publish a financial stability review (FSR) increased from 1 to 40. A FSR may contribute to financial stability, increase accountability of authorities responsible for financial stability, and strengthen co-operation between the various authorities. The occurrence of a banking crisis in the past, income per capita, and European Union membership increase the likelihood that a FSR is published. The content of FSRs differs widely; on average only 33% of the indicators as suggested by the IMF is actually published. The amount of information provided seems unrelated to the health of the banking system.

We examine whether bank earnings volatility depends on bank size. Using quarterly data for bank holding companies in the United States for the period 1995Q1–2010Q3 and controlling for the quality of management, leverage, and diversification, we find that bank size reduces return volatility. However, the effect is non-linear: when bank size exceeds a certain threshold (about US$5billion) size is positively related to earnings volatility. The recent financial crisis decreased the threshold beyond which the impact of size on volatility turns positive.

Using a survey in the Netherlands, we find that high inflation perceptions are associated with low trust in Dutch politics and the Dutch central bank, also if we control for a broad array of potential confounding factors. The higher individuals’ perceived inflation is and the harder it is for them to make ends meet, the lower their trust in Dutch politics, the Dutch central bank, and the European Central Bank. We also find that trust in an authority is lower when it is considered responsible for bringing inflation down. Quite remarkably, most people think the government is responsible for maintaining price stability.

This paper provides a new indicator for central bank independence (CBI) based on the turnover rate of central bank governors for 82 developing countries over the period 1980–1989. Using this new indicator it is concluded that this proxy for CBI is related to inflation, only if the high inflation countries are included in the sample. The view that both CBI and inflation are caused by effective opposition towards inflation is not supported. Using both the extreme bound analysis and Sala-i-Martin's method we do not find evidence that CBI is robustly related to economic growth.