This paper investigates the effects of monetary policy over banks' loans growth and non-performing loans for the recent period in Brazil. We contribute to the literature on bank lending and risk taking channel by showing that during periods of loosening/tightening monetary policy, banks...

This paper tests whether diversification of the credit portfolio at the bank level is associated to better performance and lower risk. We employ a new high frequency (monthly) panel data constructed for the Brazilian banking system with information at the bank level for loans by economic sector....

Periods of Financial Stability are associated to low bank efficiency and high non-performing loans in credit portfolios. Therefore, this paper studies the relationship between bank efficiency and non-performing loans. To evaluate the bank efficiency, we employ a Data Envelopment Analysis. We...

This paper presents empirical evidence suggesting that the degree of long-range dependence in interest rates depends on the conduct of monetary policy. We study the term structure of interest rates for the US and find evidence that global Hurst exponents change dramatically according to Chairman...

Using a sample of 495 Latin American banks over the period 2001-2008, this paper investigates how bank concentration influences cost and profit efficiency. We calculate scale efficiency to assess whether these banks are close to their optimal size. We find that banks are more inefficient in...

This paper employs a general equilibrium approach to model the Brazilian financial system. We show that the model is able to replicate the main characteristics of the data and to predict short-term trends. The model is calibrated for the 2002-2006 period. Empirical results suggest that the...

In this study we analyze Brazilian stock prices to detect the development of bubbles and crashes in individual stocks using a log-periodic equation. We implement a genetic algorithm to calibrate the parameters of the model and we test the methodology for the most liquid stocks traded on the...

This paper tests whether volatility for equity returns for emerging markets possesses long-range dependence. Furthermore, the assertion of whether long-range dependence is time-varying is checked through a rolling sample approach. The empirical results suggest that there exists long-range...