How Do EU Banks’ Funding Costs Respond to the CRD IV? An Assessment Based on the Banking Union Directives Database
Thomas Krause, Eleonora Sfrappini, Lena Tonzer, Cristina Zgherea
Journal of Financial Stability,
Vol. 78 (June),
2025
Abstract
The establishment of the European Banking Union constitutes a major change in the regulatory framework of the banking system. Main parts are implemented via directives that show staggered transposition timing across EU member states. Based on the newly compiled Banking Union Directives Database, we assess how banks’ funding costs responded to the Capital Requirements Directive IV (CRD IV). Our findings show an upward trend in funding costs which is driven by an increase in cost of equity and partially offset by a decline in cost of debt. The diverging trends are most present in countries with an ex-ante lower regulatory capital stringency, which is in line with banks’ short-run adjustment needs but longer-run benefits from increased financial stability.
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Step by Step ‒ A Quarterly Evaluation of EU Commission's GDP Forecasts
Katja Heinisch
Journal of Forecasting,
Vol. 44 (3),
2025
Abstract
The European Commission’s growth forecasts play a crucial role in shaping policies and provide a benchmark for many (national) forecasters. The annual forecasts are built on quarterly estimates, which do not receive much attention and are hardly known. Therefore, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of multi-period ahead quarterly GDP growth forecasts for the European Union (EU), euro area, and several EU member states with respect to first-release and current-release data. Forecast revisions and forecast errors are analyzed, and the results show that the forecasts are not systematically biased. However, GDP forecasts for several member states tend to be overestimated at short-time horizons. Furthermore, the final forecast revision in the current quarter is generally downward biased for almost all countries. Overall, the differences in mean forecast errors are minor when using real-time data or pseudo-real-time data and these differences do not significantly impact the overall assessment of the forecasts’ quality. Additionally, the forecast performance varies across countries, with smaller countries and Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) experiencing larger forecast errors. The paper provides evidence that there is still potential for improvement in forecasting techniques both for nowcasts but also forecasts up to eight quarters ahead. In the latter case, the performance of the mean forecast tends to be superior for many countries.
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Halle Institute for Economic Research
Oil price shock threatens recovery in Germany Globally rising energy prices in the wake of the new Gulf War are clouding the outlook for the German economy. According to the IWH…
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IWH-CompNet 1st ProdTool Workshop
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Archive
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Output
IWH-CompNet 1st ProdTool Workshop 26-27 February, 2026 - Vienna, Austria The IWH-CompNet 1st ProdTool Workshop (26–27 February 2026, Vienna) successfully brought together experts,…
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Overview
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Research Articles Explore cutting-edge research based on CompNet’s micro-aggregated firm-level data and related analytical tools. These articles cover empirical and theoretical…
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