Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed

This paper studies the determinants of the sovereign debt portfolios of small European banks. We cover the time frame from 2010 to 2017, including the peak of the European debt crisis. Our analysis focuses on Less Significant Institutions (LSI), a group of small financial institutions that show a d...

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Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela 2022-12-01
Series:Revista Galega de Economía
Online Access:https://ojs3usc.devxercode.es/index.php/ubr/article/view/4406
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collection DOAJ
description This paper studies the determinants of the sovereign debt portfolios of small European banks. We cover the time frame from 2010 to 2017, including the peak of the European debt crisis. Our analysis focuses on Less Significant Institutions (LSI), a group of small financial institutions that show a different sovereign risk exposure from larger institutions. Our results indicate that LSIs with strong credit quality and low capitalization tend to increase their investment in sovereign debt. We apply a GMM-system estimator to address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity. Overall, our results contribute to a better understanding of the risk determinants of LSIs, enriching the debate on supervision and regulation proportionality, as small European banks present distinctive behaviour. According to our results, a debate on macroprudential regulations to reconsider a country’s sovereign debt as risk free is desirable to reduce the risk exposure of LSIs.
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issn 1132-2799
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publishDate 2022-12-01
publisher Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
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series Revista Galega de Economía
spelling doaj-art-3ea8a7cec3484654a2d2f42321f614552025-08-20T02:49:47ZengUniversidade de Santiago de CompostelaRevista Galega de Economía1132-27992255-59512022-12-011974Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed This paper studies the determinants of the sovereign debt portfolios of small European banks. We cover the time frame from 2010 to 2017, including the peak of the European debt crisis. Our analysis focuses on Less Significant Institutions (LSI), a group of small financial institutions that show a different sovereign risk exposure from larger institutions. Our results indicate that LSIs with strong credit quality and low capitalization tend to increase their investment in sovereign debt. We apply a GMM-system estimator to address endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity. Overall, our results contribute to a better understanding of the risk determinants of LSIs, enriching the debate on supervision and regulation proportionality, as small European banks present distinctive behaviour. According to our results, a debate on macroprudential regulations to reconsider a country’s sovereign debt as risk free is desirable to reduce the risk exposure of LSIs. https://ojs3usc.devxercode.es/index.php/ubr/article/view/4406
spellingShingle Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed
Revista Galega de Economía
title Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed
title_full Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed
title_fullStr Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed
title_full_unstemmed Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed
title_short Sovereign Debt Exposure of European Less Significant Banks: Too Small to be Bailed
title_sort sovereign debt exposure of european less significant banks too small to be bailed
url https://ojs3usc.devxercode.es/index.php/ubr/article/view/4406