We evaluate the role played by loan supply shocks in the decline of investment and industrial production during the Great Depression in Germany from 1927 to 1932. We identify loan supply shocks in the context of a time varying parameter vector autoregression with stochastic volatility. Our...

This paper explores how selective default expectations affect the pricing of sovereign bonds in a historical laboratory: the German default of the 1930s. We analyze yield differentials between identical government bonds traded across various creditor countries before and after bond market...

Our analysis finds that despite the growing number, the majority of savings banks currently do not make any payouts. Furthermore, savings banks distribute only a small part of their net profit to the shareholders. This means that they can still build up capital even if they make payouts. Savings...

In this paper, we use a fully anonymized dataset provided by the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV) to analyse which savings banks have expanded into fee-producing activities more quickly. In addition, we investigate whether their profitability and stability is correlated with the share of...

A bank's decision on loan supply and capital structure determines its immediate bankruptcy risk as well as the future availability of internal funds. These internal funds in turn determine a bank's future costs of external finance and future vulnerability to bankruptcy risks. We study these...

Using a unique data set on German banks' loans to the German real economy, we investigate banks' credit risk. This data set includes the volume of loans per bank and industry as well as the corresponding write-downs. Our empirical study for the period 2003-2011 yields the following results: (i)...

Traditional theory suggests that higher bank profitability (or franchise value) dissuades bank risk-taking. We highlight an opposite effect: higher profitability loosens bank borrowing constraints. This enables profitable banks to take risk on a larger scale, inducing risk-taking. This effect is...