Central bank digital currency and European banks’ balance sheets

The aim of this paper is to look at possible scenarios of demand for a retail-only euro central bank digital currency and assess their impact on bank’s balance sheets, to explore potential effects on bank’s intermediation capacity and financial stability. The European Central Bank, in the context of the Eurosystem investigative exercise, has tackled this issue by proposing a set of illustrative scenarios for the adoption of a Euro CBDC (see Adalid et al., 2022 and discussion therein). We expand their analysis to include more detailed results at country level by making use of individual banks data. For each demand scenario, we estimate the potential shock on deposits making use of MS-level data. We then apply these shocks at individual bank level and compare them to a set of alternative adjustment channels, including free reserves, wholesale funding and assets (deleveraging) to obtain a distribution of the ratio of shocks to different channels. Results show that per capita demand scenarios around 3 thousand euro do not seem to present risks for financial stability in the aggregate, though they present asymmetric impacts and could give raise to shifts in the structure of balance sheets and interbank markets.JRC.B.1 - Economic and Financial Resilienc

Insurance Guarantee Schemes: quantitative impact of different policy options

Insurance guarantee schemes (IGSs) provide last-resort protection to policyholders when insurance companies are unable to fulfil their contractual commitments and become insolvent. At present, only a few EU countries have one or more IGSs in place and their national schemes diverge from each other. This document, prepared by JRC for FISMA, is a quantitative assessment of several policy options for a possible proposal on the introduction of harmonized rules for IGSs. The document presents a parsimonious credit risk model which can use aggregate insurance data to estimate the loss distribution and funding needs of IGSs under different policy options regarding scope, nature of intervention and coverage. The results provide estimates of the levels of coverage that can be reached in each policy setting under different choices of funding levels. This report is a follow-up of previous studies on IGSs developed by JRC in 2010 and 2014. For any given level of security, results appear to be dependent on the level of the Probability of Default of insurers, and show variation across countries following the variation in the level of Exposure at Default. Robustness checks are conducted to check the stability of results, notably through time.JRC.B.1 - Finance and Econom

Flood protection gap: evidence for public finances and insurance premiums

Climate-related physical risks pose serious concerns for both public and private finances, and is of utmost importance to contain economic losses when natural catastrophes occur. Against this background, the paper models the impact of currently uninsured flood events on the economy and estimates its overall costs for the EU27. First, the paper estimates the share of premiums associated with insured flood events over total premiums. Then, it investigates the extra premiums written needed to close the flood protection gap by requiring all EU countries to have at least a minimum level of insurance protection. The results show that insurance premiums written should at least be doubled to reach a harmonized level of penetration equal to 50%. Third, the paper proposes a stylised approach to quantify the potential economic losses associated with uninsured flood events at different levels of insurance penetration, when the insurance protection fails due to defaults in the insurance sector. The model can be used to assess the size of loss that might affect public finances if no preventive measures are taken to increase society’s resilience against climate and weather-related risks and compare it with a safeguard mechanism under a “worst case” scenario. The results show that losses affecting public finances might amount to EUR 27 billion today. Under an alternative scenario accounting for an increase in insured losses due to an uptake in the insurance sector, losses would decrease by up to 50%.JRC.B.1 - Economic and Financial Resilienc

A Generic Architecture For Demand Response: The ALL4Green Approach

Demand Response is a mechanism used in power grids to manage customers’ power consumption during critical situations (e.g. power shortage). Data centres are good candidates to participate in Demand Response programs due to their high energy use. In this paper, we present a generic architecture to enable Demand Response between Energy Provider and Data Centres realised in All4Green. To this end, we show our three-level concept and then illustrate the building blocks of All4Green’s architectural design. Furthermore, we introduce the novel aspects of GreenSDA and GreenSLA for Energy Provider–Data centre sub-ecosystem as well as Data centre–IT Client sub-ecosystem respectively. In order to further reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission, the notion of data centre federation is introduced: savings can be expected if data centres start to collaborate by exchanging workload. Also, we specify the technological solutions necessary to implement our proposed architectural approach. Finally, we present preliminary proof-of-concept experiments, conducted both on traditional and cloud computing data centres, which show relatively encouraging results

Cryogenic surface resistance of copper:Investigation of the impact of surface treatments for secondary electron yield reduction

The surface resistance of copper samples with an amorphous carbon (a-C) coating or with laser surface structuring, the surface treatments of choice for electron cloud suppression in critical cryogenic sectors of the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), has been measured for the first time at a cryogenic temperature using the quadrupole resonator at CERN. Three different frequencies of relevance for evaluating beam impedance effects, namely, 400, 800, and 1200 MHz, have been investigated. No significant increase in surface resistance is observed for the a-C coating, compared to plain copper. In the case of laser structuring, the surface resistance depends on the direction of the surface currents relative to the laser-engraved groove pattern. The increase is minimal for parallel patterns, but in the perpendicular case the surface resistance increases considerably. Radio frequency (rf) heating from wake losses would then also increase in the HL-LHC case; however, the reduction in the power deposited onto the cold surfaces thanks to electron cloud suppression would still outweigh this effect

Accounting for climate transition risk in banks’ capital requirements

This paper uses a stylized simulation model to assess the potential impact of transition risk on banks’ balance sheets and establishes a basis for calibrating relevant macro-prudential instruments. We show that even in the short run, a fire sale mechanism could amplify an initially contained shock on high carbon assets into a systemic crisis with significant losses for the EU banking sector. Under an orderly transition, the decrease in banks’ transition risk exposure due to the greening of the economy would reduce the effect of a fire-sale by a factor of 10.JRC.B.1 - Economic and Financial Resilienc

Multi-modality imaging approach in a challenging case of surgically corrected partial anomalous pulmonary venous return and atrial tachycardia treated with radiofrequency ablation

Pulmonary anomalous venous return (PAPVR) is defined as a congenital anomaly in which at least one but not all of the pulmonary veins abnormally drain into a systemic vein or directly into the right atrium. Signs and symptoms related to this condition are due to the hemodynamic abnormalities secondary to left-to-right shunt and the possible presence of other associated cardiac anomalies (e.g., sinus venous atrial septal defect). Therefore, depending on the extent of the shunt, the clinical presentation of PAPVR is variable, ranging from asymptomatic patients to patients affected by severe heart failure with right-sided volume overload. PAPVR with a clinically significant shunt should be referred for surgical correction with different techniques depending on the presence of associated cardiac anomalies. We are presenting a case of partial anomalous venous return (PAPVR) in a 66-year-old man who underwent surgery 26 years ago to correct an anomalous venous connection between the right superior pulmonary vein (RSPV) and the superior vena cava (SVC) through a veno-atrial baffle. The patient was admitted to the emergency department due to atrial tachycardia. Trans-thoracic echocardiography (TTE) showed a dilated right ventricle (RV) with mild RV systolic dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension.Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) further confirmed the findings described by TTE and also demonstrated areas of fibrosis replacement in the hinge points. Cardiac computed tomography (CCT) was able to accurately depict and evaluate the surgically created veno-atrial baffle and also showed an anomalous connection between the left superior pulmonary vein (LSPV) and the brachiocephalic vein (BCV) through a vertical vein. The patient was successfully treated with radiofrequency ablation for his arrhythmia

a comparison of semg temporal and spatial information in the analysis of continuous movements

Abstract Much effort has recently been devoted to the analysis of continuous movements with the aim of promoting EMG signal acceptance in several fields of application. Moreover, several studies have been performed to optimize the temporal and spatial parameters in order to obtain a robust interpretation of EMG signals. Resulting from these perspectives, the investigation of the contribution of EMG temporal and spatial information has become a relevant aspect for signal interpretation. This paper aims to evaluate the effects of the two types of information on continuous motions analysis. In order to achieve this goal, the spatial and temporal information of EMG signals were separated and applied as input for an offline Template Making and Matching algorithm. Movement recognition was performed testing three different methods. In the first case (the Temporal approach) the RMS time series generated during movements was the only information employed. In the second case (the Spatial approach) the mean RMS amplitude measured on each channel was considered. Finally, in the third case (the Spatio-Temporal approach) a combination of the information from both the previous approaches was applied. The experimental protocol included 14 movements, which were different from each other in the muscular activation and the execution timing. Results show that the recognition of continuous movements cannot disregard the temporal information. Moreover, the temporal patterns seem to be relevant also for distinguishing movements which differ only in the muscular areas they activate

Characterization of atmospheric aerosol optical properties based on the combined use of a ground-based Raman lidar and an airborne optical particle counter in the framework of the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment – Special Observation Period 1

Abstract. Vertical profiles of the particle backscattering coefficient at 355, 532 and 1064 nm measured by the University of Basilicata Raman lidar system (BASIL) have been compared with simulated particle backscatter profiles obtained through a Mie scattering code based on the use of simultaneous and almost co-located profiles provided by an airborne optical particle counter. Measurements were carried out during dedicated flights of the French research aircraft ATR42 in the framework of the European Facility for Airborne Research (EUFAR) project "WaLiTemp", as part of the Hydrological Cycle in the Mediterranean Experiment – Special Observation Period 1 (HyMeX-SOP1). Results from two selected case studies are reported and discussed in the paper, and a dedicated analysis approach is illustrated and applied to the dataset. Results reveal a good agreement between measured and simulated multi-wavelength particle backscattering profiles. Specifically, simulated and measured particle backscattering profiles at 355 and 532 nm for the second case study are found to deviate less than 15 % (mean value =5.9 %) and 50 % (mean value =25.9 %), respectively, when considering the presence of a continental–urban aerosol component, while slightly larger deviation values are found for the first study. The reported good agreement between measured and simulated multi-wavelength particle backscatter profiles testifies to the ability of multi-wavelength Raman lidar systems to infer aerosol types at different altitudes

Clear-air lidar dark band

This paper illustrates measurements carried out by the Raman lidar BASIL in the frame of HOPE, revealing the presence of a clear-air dark band phenomenon (i.e. the appearance of a minimum in lidar backscatter echoes) in the upper portion of the convective boundary layer. The phenomenon is clearly distinguishable in the lidar backscatter echoes at 1064 nm. This phenomenon is attributed to the presence of lignite aerosol particles advected from the surrounding open pit mines in the vicinity of the measuring site