We examine the influence of cross country differences on debt maturity for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) using a sample of 3366 SMEs from 19 European countries. We analyze a country's legal environment, institutional environment, banking structure and economic situation while...

This paper examines the impact of country specific determinants on multiple banking using a unique survey sample of 4959 SMEs from 19 European countries. Our data shows that (1) SMEs in countries with inefficient loan enforcement mechanisms are more likely to maintain multiple bank...

The aim of the paper is to show that e-commerce holds the potential to transform banking and financial systems. There are three aspects in which e-commerce can affect banking and finance. First, banks and financial firms can use the technology and business practice of e-commerce to market their...

We analyze regulatory capital requirements where the amount of required capital depends on the level of risk reported by the banks. It is shown that if the supervisors have a limited ability to identify or to sanction dishonest banks, an additional risk-independent leverage ration restriction...

Most previous research on efficiency in banking takes a regulatory perspective. In contrast, this paper investigates the empirical relation between efficiency and profitability in five large economies of the European Union during the period 1998-2005 and discusses the results from the...

We analyze regulatory capital requirements where the amount of required capital depends on the level of risk reported by the banks. It is shown that if the supervisors have a limited ability to identify or to sanction dishonest banks, an additional risk-independent leverage ration restriction...

This paper analyzes capital market reactions to international bank M&A. We investigate combined stock return patterns of targets, bidders, and their peers upon takeover announcement, and closing or withdrawal. We distinguish five common M&A hypotheses and relate characteristic and mutually...