This paper studies the question of the economic scale of financial institutions. We show that banks actively smooth book equity by adjusting payouts to achieve a desired trajectory of book equity. The countercyclical nature of net payouts of financial institutions leads to procyclical book...

We take the model of Alfarano et al. (Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control 32, 2008, 101-136) as a prototype agent-based model that allows reproducing the main stylized facts of financial returns. The model does so by combining fundamental news driven by Brownian motion with a minimalistic...

International activities of commercial banks are a potential source for the transmission of shocks across countries. In Europe, bank finance plays a relatively important role, and efforts have been made at creating a level playing field for financial institutions. This paper reviews the stylized...