We investigate whether and how the shift from discretionary forward-looking provisioning to the restrictive incurred loss approach under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the European Union (EU) affects the cross-country comparability and predictive ability of loan loss...

When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a...

The paper analyses the effects of three sets of accounting rules for financial instruments - Old IAS before IAS 39 became effective, Current IAS or US GAAP, and the Full Fair Value (FFV) model proposed by the Joint Working Group (JWG) - on the financial statements of banks. We develop a...

When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a...

We find that prestigious companies pay lower spreads and upfront fees on their loans despite the fact that prestige does not predict default risk over the life of the loan. Using survey data on firm-level prestige, we show that a one standard deviation increase in prestige reduces loan spreads...

Does an increase in competition increase or decrease bank stability? I exploit how the state-specific process of interstate banking deregulation lowered barriers to entry into urban banking markets and find that greater competition significantly increases bank stability. This result is robust to...

The issuance of sustainability-linked loans (SLLs) has grown exponentially in recent years. Using a scoring methodology, we examine the underlying key performance indicators of a large sample of SLLs and analyze whether their design creates effective incentives for improving corporate...

This paper analyzes banks choice between lending to firms individually and sharing lending with other banks, when firms and banks are subject to moral hazard and monitoring is essential. Multiple-bank lending is optimal whenever the benefit of greater diversification in terms of higher...

Some of the most widely expressed myths about the German financial system are concerned with the close ties and intensive interaction between banks and firms, often described as Hausbank relationships. Links between banks and firms include direct shareholdings, board representation, and proxy...

We studied information and interaction processes in six lending relationships between a universal bank and medium sized firms. The study is based on the credit files of the respective firms. If no problems occur in these lending relationships, bank monitoring is based mainly on cheap,...