Over the course of the recession during the last six years, central bank officials in Croatia have on numerous occasions stated there is a strong need for structural reforms in Croatia and that there is no need for monetary policy reforms. This short paper investigates why the CNB is only...

We document the development of the major international banks since the late nineties, analysing balance sheet data for 27 large and complex financial institutions. We argue that balance sheet expansion and business line diversification paved the way to the rise of the universal banking model....

The objective of this paper is to analyze the efficiency of the Italian Banking System over the period 2006-2010. By applying the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA) to a panel of 700 banks, the analysis is based on the joint estimation of a cost function and an efficiency equation (Battese and...

This article is devoted to the analysis of the integration level of the banking markets of CEE countries and EU. First of all we estimate the mutual presence of banking structures, cross-border corporate and retail loans between CEE and EU. Secondly we analyze the level of harmonization of the...

This paper while emphasising the importance of the concept of financial stability in wake of recent global financial crisis in particular and other (banking and financial) crises in general attempts to highlight the significance of the soundness of banking sector in emerging economies where...

This article relies on statistical and empirical data to develop a classification of state-influenced banks. An estimate of such banks’ combined market share by July 1, 2009 is suggested. We identify 53 state-controlled banks in Russia, including state-owned banks and state-governed banks....

This paper tackles state participation in the Russian financial sector. We take the case of the banking industry to suggest criteria for a more accurate definition of public sector boundaries and an assessment of the actual scale of state presence in the national banking market. The approach for...

The financial crisis and the ensuing recession have caused a sharp deterioration in public finances across advanced economies, raising investor concerns about sovereign risk. The concerns have so far mainly affected the euro area, where some countries have seen their credit ratings downgraded...

The global financial meltdown brought to light a number of weaknesses in the U.S. financial system. Not all financial institution types will be taking large sums of taxpayer money to address their crippling decisions. Credit unions in the U.S. represent a type of financial cooperative that will...

This study examines the impact of credit rating upgrades and downgrades on six comprehensive banks’ asset classes, profitability, leverage and size using data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s call reports and Bloomberg over the period 1989-2008. In summary, the results...