We explore the impact of concentration in the banking markets on the capital structure of publicly quoted non-financial firms in the EU15 over the period 1997- 2005, an era marked by intensive merger activity in the banking sector. Our main finding is a negative and significant relationship...

We explore the impact of concentration in the banking markets on the capital structure of publicly quoted non-financial firms in the EU15 over the period 1997- 2005, an era marked by intensive merger activity in the banking sector. Our main finding is a negative and significant relationship...

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...

We examine why firms change their main bank and how this affects loans, interest payments and firm performance after switching. Using unique firm-bank matched Ukrainian data, the treatment effect estimates suggest that more transparent and riskier companies are more likely to switch their main...

We investigate whether or not banks play a positive role in the ownership structure of European listed firms. We distinguish between banks and other institutional investors as shareholders and examine empirically the relationship between financial institution ownership and the performance of the...