We explore the relationship between financial reforms and income inequality using a panel of 29 countries over 1975-2005. We extend panel unit root tests to allow for the presence of some financial-reform covariates and further suggest an associated but novel, semi-parametric approach. Results...

Europe's financial structure has become strongly bank-based - far more so than in other economies. We document that an increase in the size of the banking system relative to equity and private bond markets is associated with more systemic risk and lower economic growth, particularly during...

The ECB Report on Financial Structures (RFS) in the euro area reviews the main structural features of and developments in the broader euro area financial sector. Like the ECB Banking Structures Report (BSR), which was published until 2014 and can be seen as a predecessor of the RFS, the RFS has...

In this paper, we propose a new framework to jointly calibrate cyclical and structural capital requirements. For this, we integrate a non-linear macroeconomic model and a stress test model. In the macroeconomic model, the severity of the scenarios depends on the level of cyclical risk....

We find that the increased use of securitization activity in the banking sector prior to the 2007- 2009 crisis augmented the effect of competition on realized bank risk (i.e. more intense competition and greater use of securitization is correlated with higher levels of realized risk) during the...

Forbearance is a practice of granting concessions to troubled borrowers, typically in the form of prolongation of maturity of refinancing of the loan. While economically useful in some circumstances, it can be used by banks in order to reduce the need for provisions and conceal potential losses....

Various approaches have been employed to explore the possibility of non-linear feedback between the real and financial sector. The present study focuses on the impact of real shocks on selected financial sector indicators, and the responses of the real economy to impulses emanating from the...