In this paper we propose a new approach to the assessment of excessive risk-taking by a banking sector. We use the portfolio approach to assess the optimal risk-return combination of a bank’s portfolio, based on data for 32 categories of loans. It provides a benchmark for the optimality...

In contrast to many other accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs), the Czech Republic experienced a shorter and less severe transition recession in the first half of the 1990s. The decline in output lasted two years and by 1995, real GDP had returned to its 1989 level....

We examine the relation between capital and liquidity creation. This issue is interesting because of the potential impact on liquidity creation from tighter capital requirements such as those in Basel III. We perform Granger-causality tests in a dynamic GMM panel estimator framework on an...