Our study investigates the link between bank lending behavior and macroeconomic uncertainty. We develop a dynamic model of a bank's value maximization that results in a negative relationship between loan to capital ratio and macroeconomic uncertainty. This proposition is tested using a panel of...

Competition is claimed to be beneficial in development projects promoting micro and small enterprise finance although there are still some doubts whether these loans can be developed into a profitable business. Actually nothing is known about how many MSE banking units optimally should be...

This paper tests whether an increase in insured deposits causes banks to become more risky. We use variation introduced by the U.S. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in October 2008, which increased the deposit insurance coverage from $100,000 to $250,000 per depositor and bank. For some...

This paper uses data from a panel of more than 400 Italian banks for the period 2001 – 2012 to examine the main determinants of loan loss provision (LLP), which are classified as either discretionary (income smoothing, capital management,signalling) or non-discretionary (related to the...

Das Papier gibt zunächst einen Überblick über die Ursachen und ökonomischen Kosten der Bankenkrise in Rußland, die im Jahr 1998 ausbrach. Eine Analyse des Verhaltens russischer Banken im Zeitraum 1998 bis 1999 zeigt, daß diese sich relativ konservativ bezüglich ihrer Kreditvergabe...

We estimate the impact of effective profit taxation on the financial leverage of corporations on the basis of a pseudo-panel constructed from corporate tax return micro data for the period 1998-2001, a period which saw the introduction of a major corporate tax reform in Germany. The financial...

This paper uses a quasi-experimental framework provided by recent changes in Russian corporate law to study the effect of investor protection on the value of shares. The legal change analyzed involves the empowerment of preferred (non-voting) shareholders to veto unfavorable changes in their...

The paper proceeds from the assumption that the inequalities of opportunity between men and women on the labor market and in society overall tend to consolidate in the management bodies of large companies. The predominance of men on the supervisory boards of Germany's largest private sector...

Developed and well regulated financial markets are usually seen as a precondition for an efficient allocation of resources and can foster long term economic growth. This paper explores the institutional determinants for financial development in the countries of the Middle East and North African...

We put forward a modern version of the 'developmental' view of government-owned banks which shows that the combination of information asymmetries and weak institutions creates scope for such banks to play a growth-promoting role. We present new cross-country evidence consistent with our...