In a recent line of research the low interest-rate environment of the early to mid 2000s is viewed as an element that triggered increased risk-taking appetite of banks in search for yield. This paper uses approximately 18,000 annual observations on euro area banks over the period [2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008] and presents strong empirical evidence that low interest rates indeed increase bank risk-taking substantially. This result is robust across a number of different specifications that account, inter alia, for the potential endogeneity of interest rates and/or the dynamics of bank risk. Notably, among the banks of the large euro area countries this effect is less pronounced for French institutions, which held on average a relatively low level of risk assets. Finally, the distributional effects of interest rates on bank risk-taking due to individual bank characteristics reveal that the impact of interest rates on risk assets is diminished for banks with higher equity capital and is amplified for banks with higher off-balance sheet items.

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This paper presents and critically discusses the origins and causes of the Greek fiscal crisis and its implications for the euro currency as well as the SEE economies. In the aftermath of the 2007-2009 financial crisis the enormous increase in sovereign debt has emerged as an important negative outcome, since public debt was dramatically increased in an effort by the US and the European governments to reduce the accumulated growth of private debt in the years preceding the recent financial turmoil. Although Greece is the country member of the eurozone that has been in the middle of this ongoing debt crisis, since November 2009 when it was made clear that its budget deficit and mainly its public debt were not sustainable, Greece’s fiscal crisis is not directly linked to the 2007 US subprime mortgage loan market crisis. As a result of this negative downturn the Greek government happily accepted a rescue plan of 110 billion euros designed and financed by the European Union and the IMF. A lengthy austerity programme and a fiscal consolidation plan have been put forward and are to be implemented in the next three years

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Using a number of theoretical considerations, we define distinct periods of anxiety for key economic agents that are involved in lending decisions; namely, consumers, CEOs, and banks. The main characteristic of anxious periods is that the perceptions and expectations about economic conditions worsen for these agents even though the economy is not in a recession. Subsequently, we study the lending behavior of US banks during the three distinct pools of anxious quarters from 1985-2010, using bank-level data. We find that banks' lending falls when consumers and banks are anxious, and this effect is more pronounced when banks hold a high level of credit risk. Yet, in those anxious periods that were followed by recessions, the negative impact of anxiety on loan growth is significantly weaker for banks with high-credit risk that points to the existence of a moral-hazard mechanism. We also find significant differentiation in banks' lending within anxious periods across different loan categories. We contend that these findings point to the identification of an 'expectations channel' in banks' lending that exists throughout the business cycle.

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