To counteract (alleged) stagnating lending and the consequential low investment activity across the European Union following the 2008 financial crisis, the European Commission developed the Capital Markets Union Action Plan in 2015. After a brief overview of the status quo of the banking sector...

It has been an age-old debate whether the financial structure matters for the real economy’s efficiency and therefore for real outcomes. We suppose that varying socioeconomic conditions require appropriately designed corresponding financial sectors. For providing evidence, we firstly determine...