Abstract During the global banking crisis of 2007-2009 and the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis of 2010-2012 the so called ‘TARGET2 imbalances’ attracted considerable attention. Some economists interpreted them as a symptom of the ECB’s ‘stealth bail-out’. The aim of the paper is to highlight that contrary to such claim, the emergence of TARGET2 imbalances reflected the benefits of having a mutual central bank within a monetary union which facilitated cross-border funding in spite of the global financial turbulence. The ECB’s liquidity loans to commercial banks in the Eurozone debtor countries shielded the Eurozone from a much deeper financial crisis than it actually occurred. The emergence of the TARGET 2 imbalances was actually only an accounting phenomenon resulting from the fact that these liquidity loans were technically extended by the debtor countries’ national central banks which are de facto (from the monetary policy perspective) ECB’s regional branches.

中文翻译：

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TARGET2不平衡的教训：欧洲央行成为最后贷款人的案例

摘要在2007-2009年的全球银行危机和2010-2012的欧元区主权债务危机期间，所谓的“ TARGET2不平衡”引起了相当大的关注。一些经济学家将其解释为欧洲央行“隐形救助”的症状。本文的目的是强调与这种主张相反的是，TARGET2不平衡的出现反映了在货币联盟内建立共同央行的好处，尽管全球金融动荡，该组织也促进了跨境融资。欧洲央行向欧元区债务国商业银行的流动性贷款使欧元区免受了比实际发生的更为严重的金融危机的影响。