The financial crisis modified drastically and rapidly the European financial system's political economy, with the emergence of two competing narratives. First, government agencies are frequently described as being at the mercy of the financial sector, routinely hijacking political, regulatory...

Under the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) introduced in 2014, the European Central Bank directly supervises significant euro area banks, which hold about 82% of total banking assets. We find that this important supervisory change has positive effects on the return on assets and the return on...