Concerns about excessive variability in bank risk weights have prompted their review by regulators. This paper provides prima facie evidence on the extent of risk weight heterogeneity across broad asset classes and by country of counterparty for major banks in the European Union using internal...

Some countries support smaller firms through tax incentives in an effort to stimulate job creation and startups, or alleviate specific distortions, such as financial constraints or high regulatory or tax compliance costs. In addition to fiscal costs, tax incentives that discriminate by firm size...

The paper investigates EU banks' profitability through the recent financial cycle using banklevel balance sheet and income statement data. We find that banks that were more successful at protecting their profits had a less pronounced deterioration in loan quality and a larger improvement in cost...