In Europe the increased focus on macro-prudential policy has led to the establishment of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB). The ESRB will have responsibility for EU-wide macro-prudential oversight and policy recommendation. The global financial crisis has revealed important deficiencies of the standard macroeconomic models in capturing financial instabilities. Realistic characterisations of such instabilities include bank defaults, financial market illiquidity, extreme events, and related non-linearities. None of these feature in the macroeconomic models regularly used for forecasting and monetary policy analysis and only recently has more emphasis been given to better developing the role of financial sectors in these models. This gap is of particular concern given the ongoing efforts to establish serious macro-prudential oversight and regulation to counter systemic risks. The aim of this special feature is to provide an overview of the recent upsurge in research papers trying to integrate more developed financial sectors in standard macroeconomic models and to compare this work with what is needed for the support of macro-prudential policies. One conclusion is that very significant further research efforts are needed, including attempts using modelling approaches that deviate from the currently dominating macroeconomic paradigm. It is of great importance that the academic and policy-oriented research communities join forces in working towards this objective. A host of new quantitative measures of systemic risk have recently been proposed in the academic and central banking literature. The stated purpose of these tools is to support macro-prudential oversight and inform policy decisions. This special feature surveys these measures, focusing primarily on the most recent developments that have not yet been covered in the ECB’s Financial Stability Review, and explains what can be learned from them. The strengths and weaknesses of approaches when applied in a macro-prudential context are discussed. Significant research in this area has addressed how to measure the systemic importance of specific financial intermediaries, for example by estimating the externalities they may exert on the financial system. With the rising number of different analytical measures and models it becomes increasingly important to prioritise between them and to construct a system of measures that, overall, covers all dimensions of systemic risk and how they relate to each other. Large and increasing investment exposures to government bonds have left insurers more vulnerable to changes in long-term risk-free interest rates and their levels. However, changes in risk-free interest rates affect both the asset and the liability side of insurers’ balance sheets. This box discusses the various ways in which interest rate levels and changes impact insurers, with the aim of shedding some light on whether low-risk free interest rates are good or bad for insurers. Investment risks are one of the most prominent risks that insurers and pensions funds are confronted with, and the analysis of insurers’ and pension funds’ financial asset positions is therefore an important element in financial stability analysis. From a broader financial stability perspective, it is also important to analyse the investment of insurers and pension funds, since portfolio reallocation of insurers, or the unwinding of positions, has the potential to affect financial stability by destabilising asset prices. In addition, the investment of insurers and pension funds create important financial links to, in particular, governments and banks. On 21 January, 2010, the US Administration proposed a new set of broad regulatory initiatives for the banking sector. Among these, there was support for the proposal put forward by Paul Volcker, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, which, in practice, recommends restrictions on banks’ business models. The so-called "Volcker rule" aims to prevent banks that have access to central bank and deposit insurance facilities from trading on their own account, as well as from owning and investing in hedge funds and private equity. In a way, the initiative brings back to the regulatory landscape a modified version of the Glass-Steagall restrictions on banks’ securities business.