The paper provides an empirical analysis of aggregate banking system ratios during systemic banking crises. Drawing upon a wide cross-country dataset, we utilize parametric and nonparametric tests to assess the power of these ratios to discriminate between sound and unsound banking systems. We...

The global financial crisis has renewed policymakers' interest in improving the policy framework for financial stability, and an open question is to what extent and in what form should financial stability reports be part of it. We examine the recent experience with central banks' financial...

Most financial institutions in the European Union (EU) are still based in one country, but a number of large financial institutions (LCFI) have systemic cross-border exposures. The paper explains how, despite much progress, nationally-segmented supervisory frameworks and national accountability...

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of the cross-country relationship between a direct measure of competitive conduct of financial institutions and banking system fragility. Using the Panzar and Rosse H-Statistic as a measure for competition in 38 countries during 1980-2003, we...

The global financial crisis has highlighted the potential of financial conditions for influencing real economic activity. We examine the linkages between the financial and real sectors in the euro area, finding that (i) bank loan supply responds negatively to declines in bank soundness; (ii) a...

Over the past two decades, there has been a clear trend toward integrating the regulation and supervision of banks, nonbank financial institutions, and securities markets. This paper reviews the international experience with integrated supervision. We survey the theoretical arguments for and...

The global financial crisis has highlighted the importance of early identification of weak banks: when problems are identified late, solutions are much more costly. Until recently, Europe has seen only a small number of outright bank failures, which made the estimation of early warning models...