JEL classification: G21 G33 E32 C25 C41 a b s t r a c t Understanding if credit risk is driven mostly by idiosyncratic firm characteristics or by systematic factors is an important issue for the assessment of financial stability. By exploring the links between credit risk and macroeconomic developments, we observe that in periods of economic growth there may be some tendency towards excessive risk-taking. Using an extensive dataset with detailed information for more than 30 000 firms, we show that default probabilities are influenced by several firm-specific characteristics. When time-effect controls or macroeconomic variables are also taken into account, the results improve substantially. Hence, though the firms' financial situation has a central role in explaining default probabilities, macroeconomic conditions are also very important when assessing default probabilities over time.

Banks individually optimize their liquidity risk management, often neglecting the externalities generated by their choices on the overall risk of the financial system. This is the main argument to support the regulation of liquidity risk. However, there may be incentives, related for instance to the role of the lender of last resort, for banks to optimize their choices not strictly at the individual level, but engaging instead in collective risk taking strategies, which may intensify systemic risk. In this paper we look for evidence of such herding behaviors, with an emphasis on the period preceding the global financial crisis. Herding is significant only among the largest banks, after adequately controlling for relevant endogeneity problems associated with the estimation of peer effects. This result suggests that the regulation of systemically important financial institutions may play an important role in mitigating this specific component of liquidity risk. JEL Codes: G21, G28.

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