In a surprise move during a crisis, the ECB excluded Greek Government Bonds from the set of eligible collateral in monetary policy operations. In turn, Greek banks turned to Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) to meet their funding needs. ELA replenished losses from all funding sources,...

The objective of this study is to examine the causes of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the banking system of the euro area for the period 2003-2013 and distinguish between core and periphery country determinants. The increase in NPLs post crisis has put into question the robustness of many...

In bank stress tests, the role of a satellite model is to tie bank-specific risk variables to macroeconomic variables that can generate stress. For valid stress tests it is important to develop a comprehensive satellite model that both preserves the sense of known economic relationships and also...

This paper discusses the incentive conflicts that arise in banking supervision in the EU in a principal-agent framework, where the regulator is the agent and the taxpayers is the principal. The regulatory agent in addition to maintaining financial stability (the objective of the principal) may...

Procyclicality is an inherent feature of the real and especially the financial sector of an economy, which has been highlighted by the recent crisis. Due to procyclicality, banks are transformed from mitigation mechanisms to amplifiers of changes in economic activity potentially affecting...

This paper provides an overview of the history of banking transition (1989-2006) in 13 CEE countries – with particular emphasis on four relatively large Balkan countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro). Two “banking reform waves” are distinguished, salient features of...

This study uses the distribution free approach to investigate cost efficiency in a panel of Greek banks over 1993-1999, a period characterized by major changes in the banking sector brought about by gradual financial deregulation. These reforms were supposed to provide an opportunity to Greek...

Start-up firms often face difficulties in raising external funds. Employing a unique panel dataset covering 9,715 start-up firms over the period 2007-2009, we find that high-tech startups are less likely to use bank finance and face more difficulties in raising bank finance than low-tech...

The paper examines the nexus of foreign ownership and market power in 26 European banking sectors, for the period 1997-2013. The sample comprises 11,761 bank-year estimates of marginal cost and market power, which are then matched with data on the foreign ownership status and presence across all...

Neither history nor economic historians have been kind to Greece’s central bank in the interwar years. Born at the behest of the League of Nations to help the country secure a new international loan, the Bank of Greece was treated with a mixture of suspicion and hostility. The onset of the...