The Italian and German banking systems shared similar characteristics early in the 1990s but have evolved in different directions since then: Italy privatized its publicly-owned banks while Germany has maintained a large share of state-owned savings banks. Contemporaneously, banks in both...

In den 1990er Jahren haben im deutschen und französischen Kreditgewerbe Restukturierungsempfehlungen international agierender Unternehmensberatungen Konjunktur. Der wohl prominenteste dieser Managementansätze firmiert unter der Bezeichnung Lean Banking und basiert auf einer vermeintlich...

The financial crisis of 2007-08 has stressed the importance of a sound financial system. Unlike other studies weighing the pros and cons of market versus bank-based systems, this paper investigates whether the main elements of the German financial system can be regarded as complementary and...