This article analyzes whether political connections of the board of directors of publicly traded companies in the USA affect the allocation of government procurement contracts. It focuses on the change in control of both House and Senate following the 1994 election and finds that companies with...

Staaten gewähren Banken oft Garantien, um den Zusammenbruch des Finanzsystems zu verhindern. Diese Garantien müssen aber sobald wie möglich wieder zurückgenommen werden. Zuvor sollten jedoch die möglichen Auswirkungen der Abschaffung einer Garantie untersucht werden. Die so gewonnenen...

Even though governments usually enjoy favourable borrowing conditions, the current financial system in Europe grants special privileges to government debt. This involves capital requirements in banking regulation, ECB policies, intergovernmental guarantees, etc. The paper gives a short outline...

We use proprietary data to analyze the importance of retail banking relationships to commercial banks and their depositors when banks underwrite securities. We find lead underwriters' retail customers benefit as they demand and end up with significantly more of the highly underpriced issues. We...

This paper examines the results of 93 discriminatory German Treasury auctions between 1998 and 2002. It documents the seller's use of discretion and its influence on auction outcomes and bidding strategies. The evidence suggests that the seller uses its discretion frequently and substantially....

We study differences in the price paid for liquidity across banks using price data at the individual bank level. Unique to this paper, we also have data on individual banks' reserve requirements and actual reserve holdings, thus allowing us to gauge the extent to which a bank is short or long...

We document a general pattern in the euro area overnight interbank rate (EONIA) and analyze how German banks compared to other EMU banks respond to these predictable changes in the price for reserve holdings. At the beginning of the maintenance period, when the EONIA is typically above average,...

This paper analyzes the importance of retail consumers’ banking relationships for loan defaults using a unique, comprehensive dataset of over one million loans by savings banks in Germany. We find that loans of retail customers, who have a relationship with their savings bank prior to applying...

Hendrik Hering, Wirtschaftsminister von Rheinland-Pfalz, sieht im »Fall« Opel keinen Einzelfall, Tag für Tag fände genau eine solche Unterstützung bei zahlreichen kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen statt. Es sei richtig gewesen, Opel zu helfen. Nun sei GM an der Reihe. Der Staat...