We explore the impact of concentration in the banking markets on the capital structure of publicly quoted non-financial firms in the EU15 over the period 1997- 2005, an era marked by intensive merger activity in the banking sector. Our main finding is a negative and significant relationship...

This project aims at analyzing the impact of monetary policy on the international allocation of risk in a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with sticky prices and international portfolio choice. The model features endogenous firms entry which influences the evolution of...

Perfect consumption risk sharing requires both, frictionless goods as well as frictionless financial market integration. This project aims at analyzing the consequences of both type of frictions for the allocation of risk across countries in a unified framework. To this end, the theoretical...

The real interest partity (RIP) condition combines two cornerstones in international finance, uncovered interest parity (UIP) and ex ante purchasing power parity (PPP). The extent of deviation from RIP is therefore an indicator of the lack of product and financial market integration. This paper...

We investigate whether or not banks play a positive role in the ownership structure of European listed firms. We distinguish between banks and other institutional investors as shareholders and examine empirically the relationship between financial institution ownership and the performance of the...

This model analyzes the impact of monetary policy on international consumption risk sharing. To this end, the setup by Ghironi and Stebunovs (2008) is extended in two dimensions. First, to allow for international portfolio choices, cross-border trade of home and foreign equity is brought in....

In this paper we explore the issue of financial convergence in the new EU member states (NMS). For the purposes of our analysis the countries falling into the category NMS are Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, i.e. all...

During the last years, gravity equations have leapt from the trade literature over into the literature on financial markets. Martin and Rey (2004) were the first to provide a theoretical model for cross-border asset trade, yielding a structural gravity equation that could be tested empirically....

Government interventions into the financial system in the form of bail out operations or liquidity assistance are often justified with the systemic importance of large banks for the real economy. In this paper, we test whether idiosyncratic shocks to loan growth at large banks have effects on...

We expect a firm's competitive advantage to manifest itself in a return on invested capital that is higher than the opportunity cost of capital. Deviations of returns from the cost of capital are a signal for competitive entry or for exit, while the speed of convergence indicates the strength of...