The lack of liquidity in the interbank market during the crisis of 2007–2011 led governments to impose different policies to rescue their countries’ banking sectors. While in advanced countries interventions in the banking sector were mostly related to a lack of liquidity and significant asymmetric information regarding counterparty risk, in many less advanced countries they had a precautionary motive. In our article, we investigate the effectiveness of policy interventions on healthy banking markets, with possible negative spill-over effects from other countries. To this extent, we use an event study methodology to test the effect of liquidity and financial sector policy announcements on interbank spread changes in six Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries over the period between 2007 and 2011. We find that standard liquidity interventions did not provide effective stabilization. In fact, our evidence suggests that the spread widened after their announcement, probably as a result of the negative signal and consequently increased risk aversion of banks. In such situations, regulators should consider policy instruments that aim to decrease uncertainty in the market.

2007年至2011年危机期间，银行间市场缺乏流动性，导致各国政府采取了不同的政策来挽救其本国的银行业。在发达国家，对银行业的干预主要与缺乏流动性和有关交易对手风险的重要信息不对称有关，而在许多较不发达国家，它们的预防目的是出于动机。在我们的文章中，我们调查了政策干预措施对健康的银行市场的有效性，以及其他国家可能产生的负面溢出效应。在这种程度上，我们使用事件研究方法来测试流动性和金融部门政策公告对2007年至2011年期间中欧和东欧（CEE）六个国家的银行间利差变化的影响。我们发现标准的流动性干预措施无法提供有效的稳定作用。实际上，我们的证据表明，这些利差在宣布之后就扩大了，可能是由于负面信号并因此增加了银行的风险规避。在这种情况下，监管机构应考虑旨在减少市场不确定性的政策工具。