This Occasional Paper reviews financial stability challenges in countries preparing for EU membership with a candidate country status, i.e. Croatia (planned to accede to the EU on 1 July 2013), Iceland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Turkey. It follows a...

This paper analyzes the effects of parliamentary election cycles on the Turkish banking system. Using annual bank-level data representing all banks in Turkey during 1963-2005, we present evidence of meaningful differences in the structure of bank assets, liabilities and financial performance...