No. 17-6 International Financial Integration, Crises, and Monetary Policy: Evidence from the Euro Area Interbank Crises Puriya Abbassi, Falk Bräuning, Falko Fecht, and José-Luis Peydró Abstract We analyze how financial crises affect international financial integration, exploiting euro area proprietary interbank data, crisis and monetary policy shocks, and variation in loan terms to the same borrower on the same day by domestic versus foreign lenders. Crisis shocks reduce the supply of cross- border liquidity, with stronger volume effects than pricing effects, thereby impairing international financial integration. On the extensive margin, there is flight to home—but this is independent of quality. On the intensive margin, however, GIPS-headquartered debtor banks suffer in the Lehman crisis, but effects are stronger in the sovereign-debt crisis, especially for riskier banks. Nonstandard monetary policy improves interbank liquidity, but without fostering strong cross-border financial reintegration. Keywords: financial integration, financial crises, cross-border lending, monetary policy, euro area sovereign crisis, liquidity JEL Classifications: E58, F30, G01, G21, G28 Puriya Abbassi is an economist working in the Directorate General Financial Stability at the Deutsche Bundesbank; his e-mail address is
[email protected]. Falk Bräuning is an economist in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; his e-mail address is
[email protected]. Falko Fecht is the DZ Bank Endowed Chair of Financial Economics at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. His e-mail address is
[email protected]. José-Luis Peydró is an ICREA Professor of Economics at the University of Pompeu Fabra; his e-mail address is
[email protected].