In many markets, empirical evidence suggests that positive production cost shocks are transmitted more quickly and fully to final prices than negative ones. This article explains asymmetric price adjustment caused by firms imperfectly colluding on supra-competitive price levels. While positive...

This paper explores whether asymmetric pricing can be identified in the eleven euro zone countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) by utilizing Error Correction Model on the weekly price changes in order to assess current and...

This paper examines the possibility of asymmetric transmission of CO2 prices to electricity futures prices in the second phase of the European Emission Trading Scheme. We would like to assess whether output prices tend to respond more quickly to input price increases than decreases: this...

Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are debt obligations whose cash flows are backed by the principal and interest payments of pools of mortgage loans, most commonly on residential property (Riddiough, 2001). Lenders establish underwriting guidelines, evaluate prospective homeowners’ credit, and...

We examine the closeness of relationships between households and their mortgage lenders using survey data which provide information on the duration, geographical proximity and scope of all bank relationships of a representative sample of households. Our analysis is based on a sample of 470...

In the last decade foreign currency indebtedness in Hungary has become a systemic financial problem, which also has a crippling impact on the real economy through its income and lending effects and has a significant constraining impact on economic policy. Besides the exchange rate the interest...

This paper contributes relevant empirical evidence which indicates the existence of difference in default rate of loans between male and female. It concludes that independent of type of loans, the default rate of female is less than male. Moreover this paper analyzes the effect of other...

Banks play a central role in financing and monitoring firms in transition economies. We study how bank competition affects the efficiency of the credit allocation, the monitoring of firms, and the firms' restructuring effort. In our model, banks compete to finance an investment project with...

Latin America faces a growing concentration of banking markets, situation that worries both the public and the media for its potential impact on competition, access to credit at competitive rates, and thus the potential impact on its economic and social development. This paper provides a brief...