Banks supply payment services that underpin the smooth operation of the economy. To ensure an efficient payment system, it is important to maintain competition among payment service providers but data available to gauge the degree of competition are quite limited. We propose and implement a...

Based on survey data covering 8,387 firms in 20 countries we compare credit demand and credit supply for firms in Eastern Europe to those for firms in selected Western European countries. We find that firms in Eastern Europe have a higher need for credit than firms in Western Europe, and that a...

This paper conducts the first empirical study of the bank balance sheet channel using data on discouraged and informally rejected firms in addition to information on the formal loan granting process. I take advantage of a unique survey data on the credit experience of firms in 8 economies that...

We analyze the effect of bank capital requirements on the structure and risk of a financial system where markets, regulated banks, and shadow banks coexist. Banks face a moral hazard problem in screening entrepreneurs' projects, and they choose whether to be regulated or not. If regulated, a...

Sovereign debt crisis, domestic banks in fiscally stressed countries were considerably more likely than foreign banks to increase their holdings of domestic sovereign bonds in months with relatively high domestic sovereign bond issuance. This effect is stronger for state‐owned banks and for...

Net trading income is an important but volatile source of income for many euro area banks, highly sensitive to changes in financial market conditions. Using a representative sample of European banks, we study the distribution of net trading income (normalized by total assets) conditional to...