This paper studies the impact of European bank mergers and acquisitions on changes in key safety and soundness measures of both acquirers and targets. We find that capitalization, profi tability and liquidity show signs of statistically and economically significant mean reversion for acquirers....

Small businesses, the majority of Spanish fi rms, rarely fi le for formal bankruptcy, and this has been the case even during the current economic crisis. This suggests that bankruptcy law has a limited role to play in the distress of small fi rms. We propose an explanation based on two premises:...

The growth in the interest rates paid on Spanish public debt since 2008 and the impairment of the interbank market have generated concerns about their effects on competition for bank deposits in Spain. I combine a nested logit model of bank deposit supply with a structural model of competition...

We analyze the takeover premiums paid for a sample of European bank mergers between 1997 and 2007. We find that acquiring banks value profitable, high-growth and low risk targets. We also find that the strength of bank regulation and supervision as well as deposit insurance regimes in Europe...

To identify credit availability we analyze the extensive and intensive margins of lending with loan applications and all loans granted in Spain. We find that during the period analyzed both worse economic and tighter monetary conditions reduce loan granting, especially to firms or from banks...

We propose an econometric analysis of the evolution of bank credit to the private sector in order to describe credit cycles and identify phases of particularly low (or negative) credit growth such as those that typically accompany financial or banking crises. We use a sample of twelve developed...

Asset securitization offers banks the possibility of altering their capital structures and the financial intermediation process. This study shows that the introduction of securitization is associated with fundamental changes in the funding policies of banks. In particular, we present evidence of...

This paper focuses on market discipline as a necessary condition to preserve the signaling content of balance sheet indicators and market prices as macroprudential tools. It argues that market discipline enhances the information content of market prices by reflecting the expected private cost of...

The EU's transposition of Basel II into European law has been done through the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD). Although the Directive establishes, in general, uniform rules to set capital requirements across European countries, there are some areas where the Directive allows some...