The ambition to expand participation in the European Banking Union was to allow the ‘outs’ to enter in to close cooperation, however, it did not include the simultaneous joining of ERM II. Focusing on the cases of Bulgaria and Croatia, this paper attempts to respond to a number of questions:...

This paper studies the impact of European bank mergers and acquisitions on changes in key safety and soundness measures of both acquirers and targets. We find that capitalization, profitability, and liquidity show signs of statistically and economically significant mean reversion for acquirers....