This paper analyses the reforms in the architecture of EMU since the eruption of the euro crisis in 2010. We describe major weaknesses in the original set-up of EMU, such as lack of fiscal discipline, diverging financial cycles and competitiveness positions, and a lack of crisis instruments....

This paper provides a survey on recent developments in the European banking industry. Traditional banking activities have contracted in relative terms, but banks remain the predomination players in the euro area financial system. Economic and monetary integration in the EU has strongly...

We present a new method to examine financial contagion, defined as a sudden strengthening of shock transmission between financial markets. In particular, we develop a correlation-like measure of synchronicity between markets that is straightforward to implement while being insensitive to...

The global financial crisis has reignited the debate about the risks of financial globalization, in particular the international transmission of financial shocks. We use data on individual loans by the largest international banks to their various countries of operation to examine whether banks'...

This paper investigates the level and development of cross-country stock market dependence using daily returns on stock indices. The use of copulas allows us to build exible models of the joint distribution of stock index returns. In particular, we apply univariate AR(p)-GARCH(1,1) models to the...

Using a novel way to identify relationship and transaction banks, we study how banks' lending techniques affect funding to SMEs over the business cycle. For 21 countries we link the lending techniques that banks use in the direct vicinity of firms to these firms' credit constraints at two...

In this paper, we analyze the business cycle behavior of home mortgages and consumer credit and investigate whether the observed changes. and in particular observed changes in the comovement between the loan variables and real activity. are likely to be caused by changes in financial markets. We...

We use panel data on the intra-group ownership structure and balance sheets of 45 of the largest banking groups from 1992 to 2004 to analyse what determines the credit growth of multinational bank subsidiaries. Both home- and host-country conditions and characteristics of the subsidiaries...

This report documents the results of cointegration analyses of the degree of convergence which the economies of the central-eastern european countries (CEECs) have achieved towards the economies of the EMU countries. This cointegration technique is applied to several of the core variables that...

This paper seeks to discover the level and spread of bank efficiency in the EU, which in the light of the current and expected increase in competition in Europe is of vital importance for welfare- related public policy toward market structure and conduct. In particular, this study focuses on...