August 2016

The Political Origin of Home Bias: the case of Europe

Filippo De Marco and Marco Macchiavelli

Abstract:

We show that politics is at the root of the banks-sovereign nexus that exacerbated the Eurozone crisis. First, government-owned banks or banks with politicians in the board of directors display higher home bias in sovereign debt compared to privately-owned banks throughout the 2010-2013 period. Second, only government-owned banks increased the home bias during the sovereign crisis (moral suasion). We exploit the fact that equity injections (bail-outs) by domestic governments were not directly targeted to politically connected banks to show that, upon receiving such assistance, only government-owned banks purchase domestic debt. Moral suasion is stronger in countries under stress.

Accessible materials (.zip)

Keywords: Banks' recapitalization, Banks-sovereign nexus, Board of directors, Government-owned banks, Home bias, Moral suasion

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2016.060

PDF: Full Paper

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Last Update: June 19, 2020