In response to the Covid-19 crisis, EU leaders agreed on the creation of a €750bn recovery fund (the Next Generation EU, NGEU). We investigate the short-term impact of this landmark deal on bank stocks, sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) and bank CDS. First, we find that stock market investors firmly welcomed the agreement as we find sizeable positive abnormal returns in bank stocks as a response to the NGEU proposal by the European Commission. Spreads on sovereign and bank CDS significantly declined, with more pronounced movements for heavily indebted countries and those that strongly advocated the creation of the recovery fund and for the banks located in these economies. Second, we show that banks’ sovereign exposures towards other European countries, especially those with weaker financial conditions and limited fiscal capacity, play a key role in driving the strength of the stock market reaction. Overall, financial markets responded positively to the credibility of the NGEU policy as an extraordinary common effort to support the post-Covid-19 recovery and enhance economic growth in the region.

This paper provides evidence of the impact of the new European bank resolution regime on the sovereign-bank nexus. The implementation of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) is considered as an exogenous shock which provides the setting for a natural experiment. This investigation tests the financial markets’ perception of the effectiveness of the new rules in weakening the tight interconnectedness between sovereign and bank risk. A Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach is adopted, building evidence from the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market for banks and non-financial corporates over the period 2011-18. The main findings do not indicate a significant weakening in the interaction between bank and sovereign CDS spreads, compared to the corresponding evidence for the non-financial corporate sector. An overall narrowing of the gap between bank and sovereign risk occurs, which initially implies a lack of credibility of the BRRD in financial markets. However, substantial cross-country variations are identified, particularly for Italy and non-euro area countries. These insights make a significant contribution to the policy debate on effective regulation of the sovereign-bank nexus, in the light of recent developments in the EU post-crisis reform agenda.

We investigate whether female representation on bank boards influences lending to polluting firms. Using confidential credit register data matched with firm-level greenhouse gas emissions, we isolate credit supply effects. Our findings reveal that banks with more gender-diverse boards lend less to more polluting firms, particularly those with the highest emission levels. These results are robust to endogeneity concerns as well as a range of alternative model specifications and econometric variations. Evidence from a European Central Bank large exposures data set confirms that this effect holds across different lending contexts. We also find that gender-diverse boards are less likely to initiate new lending relationships with highly polluting firms, suggesting an effect on both the intensive and extensive margins of credit allocation.