Developments in risk-transfer instruments and risk management techniques in the last two decades have fundamentally changed how banks manage their assets and liabilities. In this document we show that, for all three sectors of German universal banks (private commercial banks, savings banks, and...

Section 340f of the German Commercial Code allows banks to provision against the special risks inherent to the banking business by building hidden reserves. Beyond risk provisioning, these reserves are implicitly accepted as an earnings management device. By analyzing financial statements of...

We use a unique dataset of German banks’ exposure to interest rate risk to derive the following statements about their exposure to this risk and their earnings from term transformation. The systematic factor for the exposure to interest rate risk moves in sync with the shape of the term...

We decompose the change in banks' net interest margin into a change in market-wide bank rates and a change in the balance-sheet composition. Our empirical findings from a detailed data set on German banks' balance-sheet positions, broken down into different maturities, creditors and borrowers...

Carrying out interbank contagion simulations for the German banking sector for the period from the first quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2011, we obtain the following results: (i) The system becomes less vulnerable to direct interbank contagion over time. (ii) The loss distribution for...

This paper investigates contagion at the German interbank market under the assumption of a stochastic loss given default (LGD). We combine a unique data set about the LGD of interbank loans with data about interbank exposures. We find that the frequency distribution of the LGD is u-shaped. Under...

Italian Abstract: Nel periodo 2007-2014, caratterizzato da due crisi eccezionalmente gravi, le banche locali italiane hanno accresciuto la loro presenza sul territorio, ampliando la rete degli sportelli mentre le altre la riducevano, e rafforzato la quota di mercato sui prestiti a famiglie e...

In this article we test whether Italian female entrepreneurs are more reliable payers than men, by carrying out a survival analysis of micro enterprises that utilize a credit for the first time in the period January 2005 to December 2008, and monitoring the quality of their exposure until...

This paper depicts – from a variety of viewpoints – the degree of indebtedness and potential financial vulnerabilities of households across the Italian regions. Micro-data from several sources suggest that the financial situation of Italian households shows striking differences at...

We use portfolios of passive investment strategies to replicate the interest risk of banks’ banking books. The following empirical statements are derived: (i) Changes in banks’ present value and in their net interest income are highly correlated, irrespective of the banks’ portfolio...