This paper contributes to the debate on the adequate regulatory treatment of non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI). It proposes an avenue for regulators to keep regulatory arbitrage under control and preserve sufficient space for efficient financial innovation at the same time. We argue for a...

An important question in banking is how strict supervision affects bank lending and in turn local business activity. Supervisors forcing banks to recognize losses could choke off lending and amplify local economic woes. But stricter supervision could also change how banks assess and manage...

Financial relations have been deeply transformed in the 1980s and 1990s by deregulation and liberalization. Among the most affected by these changes has been the banking system. Domestic banks have generally lost the implicit protection given by regulatory barriers to entry. Until very recently,...

Placing Basel II in the perspective of the more general trend in financial regulation, the paper analyses its efficacy and efficiency as a device to foster financial resiliency. In assessing the criticisms levelled against the New Accord, special attention is devoted to the case of the emerging...

The paper examines the relationship between banking and securities activities in the light of financial market developments (securitisation, institutionalization of investment, emergence of complex financial instruments, conglomeration and consolidation), with particular reference to Europe. The...

At end-June 2004, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision finally issued the "New Capital Accord" ("Basel II"), following endorsement by G10 bank supervisors. The Accord replaces the original accord agreed in July 1988 and implemented by most major international banks since 1993. Publication...

The proposed risk sensitive minimum requirements of the new Basel capital accord have raised concerns about possible (acceleration of) procyclical behaviour of banking, which might threaten macroeconomic stability. This article analyses the interaction between business cycles and banks over the...

From the 1980s onwards the banking sectors in all the industrialised countries have been experiencing intense restructuring, aggregation and consolidation, radically changing their ownership structures and geography. Whatever the reasons behind such restructuring processes, the globalisation of...

This paper aims at analysing--from a Post Keynesian approach--the Brazilian bankingbehaviour in the current phase of the business cycle that is at the semi-stagnation state of the economy. According to the Post Keynesian approach, banks are economic agents that have liquidity preference...

This paper aims to analyze the effects of Italian banking consolidation during the nineties on the efficiency of the financial system, on competition in the market forbanking and financial services, and on the reallocation of bank ownership. Whereas a review of the recent theoretical and...