Die Debatte über die optimale Ausgestaltung der Alterssicherung wird in jüngster Zeit äußerst kontrovers und hitzig geführt. Dabei scheint uns ein zentraler Aspekt nicht genügend beachte zu werden: Welcher Zusammenhang besteht zwischen den Merkmalen des Finanzsystems und des...

The paper presents an empirical analysis of the alledged transformation of the financial systems in the three major European economies, France, Germany and the UK. Based on a unified data set developed on the basis of national accounts statistics, and employing a new and consistent method of...

This paper is one of the two introductory chapters of the book "The German Financial System". It first discusses two issues that have a general bearing on the entire book, and then provides a broad overview of the German financial system.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, it has been widely expected that the implementation of the European Single Market would lead to a rapid convergence of Europe’s financial systems. In the present paper we will show that at least in the period prior to the introduction of the common currency...

Individual financial systems can be understood as very specific configurations of certain keyelements. Often these configurations remain unchanged for decades. We hypothesize that thereis a specific relationship between key elements, namely that of complementarity. Thus,complementarity seems to...

This paper deals with two, potentially intertwined issues of stock exchangegovernance. First, we demonstrate in a static global games model that in-vestment propensity will vary across di®erent types of organizational formsand competition scenarios. Exchanges organized as mutuals are...

German open end real estate funds are internationally the only exceptionwhich have been for almost 50 years very successful. Since 2004, the whole sectorsuffers a crisis which is very close, if not already identical, to a bank run.Both phenomenon seek an explanation. The ongoing crisis let to...

In this paper, we propose a model of credit rating agencies using the global gamesframework to incorporate information and coordination problems. We introduce arefined utility function of a credit rating agency that, additional to reputationmaximization, also embeds aspects of competition and...

Although the world of banking and finance is becoming more integrated every day, in most aspects the world of financial regulation continues to be narrowly defined by national boundaries. The main players here are still national governments and governmental agencies. And until recently, they...

Wenn man untersuchen möchte, ob sich die Finanzsysteme verschiedener Länder im Verlauf der letzten Jahre aneinander angeglichen haben oder demnächst angleichen werden, braucht man ein Konzept zur Beschreibung von Finanzsystemen, durch das wesentliche Strukturen, deren Unterschiede und...