The German financial system is characterized by lower degrees of penetration by foreign commercial banks and of (bank) disintermedation than, for instance, that of the United States. These differences could be attributed to the fact that universal banking in Germany creates implicit barriers to...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the determinants of foreign activities of German banks. We use regionally disaggregated panel data for the years 1981–98 and distinguish foreign direct investment from total foreign assets of domestic banks, of their foreign branches and their...

Stylized facts suggest that output volatility in OECD countries has declined in recent years. However, the causes and the nature of this decline have so far been analyzed mainly for the United States. In this paper, we analyze whether structural breaks in the dynamics and the volatility of the...