To test if safety nets create moral hazard in the banking industry, we develop a simultaneous structural two-equations model that specifies the probability of a bailout and banks' risk taking.We identify the effect of expected bailout probabilities on risk taking using exclusion restrictions...

Lending specialization on certain industry sectors can have opposing effects on monitoring (including screening) abilities and on the sectoral concentration risk of a credit portfolio. In this paper, we examine in the first part if monitoring abilities of German cooperative banks and savings...

Using a unique data set on German banks' sector specific loan exposures to the real economy and the corresponding write-offs and write-downs, we examine the impact of loan portfolio sector concentration on credit risk. By controlling for common risk factors, we separate the bank-specific...

We integrate Basel II (and III) regulations into the industrial organization approach to banking and analyze the interaction between capital adequacy regulation and credit risk transfer with credit default swaps (CDS) including its effect on lending behavior and risk sensitivity of a...

We integrate Basel II (and III) regulations into the industrial organization approach to banking and analyze the interaction between capital adequacy regulation and credit risk transfer with credit default swaps (CDS) including its effect on lending behavior and risk sensitivity of a...

In this paper we use a reduced form model for the analysis of Portfolio Credit Risk. For this purpose, we fit a Dynamic Factor model, DF, to a large dataset of default rates proxies and macrovariables for Italy. Multi step ahead density and probability forecasts are obtained by employing both...

In this paper, using industry sector stock returns as proxies of firm asset values, we obtain bank capital requirements (through the cycle). This is achieved by Montecarlo simulation of a bank loan portfolio loss density. We depart from the Basel 2 analytical formula developed by Gordy (2003)...

Banks face a tradeoff between diversifying and focusing their loan portfolio. In this paper we carry out an empirical study for the German market to shed light on the question whether or not the benefits of risk sharing outweigh those of specialization. We use data from the Bundesbank's...

Theory of financial intermediation gives contradicting answers to the question whether banks should diversify or focus their loan portfolios. Our aim is to find out which of the two strategies is predominant in the German banking market. To this end we measure diversification for all German...

This paper examines the impact of bank concentration on bank financial distress using a balanced panel of commercial banks belonging to EU 25 over the sample period running from 2003 to 2007. Financial distress is proxied by the observations falling below a given threshold of the empirical...