Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
We study the motivations of interbank market traders around the 2007–09 subprime crisis with a new statistic, Trading Urgency, that reveals the underlying urgency to borrow overnight funds. We find that Trading Urgency leads sovereign CDS spreads and reacts to non-standard central bank interventions introduced during the crisis. Our results shed light on the channels that give rise to the sovereign-bank nexus by mapping the linkages between the interbank market and sovereigns.