prolonged recession as well as structural factors that have held back NPL write-offs by banks. The paper discusses the … impediments to NPL resolution in Italy and a strategy for fostering a market for restructuring distressed assets that could …

Germany and the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia (the CE4) have been in a process of deepening economic …

on the internal ratings of U.S. banks on loans to businesses over the period 1997 to 2011 from the Federal Reserve …’s survey of terms of business lending. We find that ex-ante risk taking by banks (as measured by the risk rating of the bank’s … pronounced for banks with relatively low capital or during periods when banks’ capital erodes, such as episodes of financial and …

different types of banks, we find no support for the argument that the presence of large international banks would have an … adverse effect on the effectiveness and efficiency of banking sectors in developing countries. International banks are … generally more efficient and more active in lending than domestic banks. However, as suggested by the Kenyan experience, the …

Bank profits are high in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) compared to other regions. This paper uses a sample of 389 banks in …