Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractThe sheer existence of EUR/CHF put options with strike prices below the EUR/CHF 1.20 floor, trading at non-zero cost, challenged the full credibility of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in enforcing the lower barrier implemented in September 6, 2011 and abandoned on January 15, 2015. We estimate the risk-neutral break probabilities of a realignment of the floor from market prices of put options, using an extension of the Veestraeten option pricing model which assumes that the underlying security price exhibits a lower barrier. We estimate probabilities considerably different from zero, even when the exchange rate traded far above the EUR/CHF 1.20 floor. We observe a drastic increase in the break-probabilities after August 2014, reaching a level of nearly 50%. The credibility of the SNB in maintaining the floor, as seen from the option market, was thus substantially lower than publicly claimed.

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and three anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions that improved the initial version. All remaining errors and omissions remain my responsibility. This work is dedicated to Alma Linnéa.

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During the recent financial crisis that erupted in mid-2007, credit default swap spreads increased by several hundred basis points, accompanied by a liquidity shortage in the U.S. financial sector. This period has both evidenced the importance that liquidity has for investors and underlined the need to understand the linkages between credit markets and liquidity. This paper sheds light on the dynamic interactions between credit and liquidity risk in the credit default swap market. Contrary to the common belief that illiquidity leads to a credit risk deterioration in financial markets, it is found that in a sample of German and Swiss companies, credit risk is more likely to be weakly endogenous for liquidity risk than vice versa. The results suggest that a negative credit shock typically leads to a subsequent liquidity shortage in the credit default swap market, in the spirit of, for instance, the liquidity spiral posited by Brunnermaier (2009), and extends our knowledge about how credit markets work, as it helps to explain the amplification mechanisms that severely aggravated the recent crisis and also indicates which macro-prudential policies would be suitable for preventing a similar financial crisis in the future.

Bundesbank, Department of Banking and Financial Supervision, Wilhelm-Epstein-Strasse 14, 60431 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; markus.hertrich@ bundesbank.de. The author's views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Deutsche Bundesbank.

In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, the central banks of small open economies such as the Swiss National Bank (SNB) implemented a unilateral one-sided exchange rate target zone vis-à-vis the euro currency to counteract deflationary pressures. Recently, the SNB abandoned its minimum exchange rate regime, arguing that after having analyzed the costs and benefits of this non-standard exchange rate policy measure, it was no longer sustainable. This paper proposes a model that allows central banks and policymakers to estimate ex-ante the costs of implementing and maintaining a unilateral onesided target zone (in terms of the expected size of foreign-exchange interventions) and to monitor these costs during the period in which it is enforced. The model also offers central banks a tool to identify the right timing for the discontinuation of a minimum exchange rate regime. An empirical application to the Swiss case shows the ex-ante estimated size of these costs and reveals that these costs might have been substantial without the abandonment of the minimum exchange rate regime, which accords with the official statements of the SNB.

In this paper, a structural model is proposed that allows monetary authorities to determine the size of foreign exchange market interventions that are expected to be necessary to implement a minimum exchange rate regime. An empirical application of the proposed model to the minimum exchange rate regime that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) implemented vis‐à‐vis the euro from September 2011 to January 2015 reveals that it is well suited to explain the actual size of these interventions and that, in January 2015, the SNB’s euro purchases might have been large without the abandonment of the minimum exchange rate regime, which is consistent with the official statements of the SNB in the aftermath of that episode.