This paper discusses the incentive conflicts that arise in banking supervision in the EU in a principal-agent framework, where the regulator is the agent and the taxpayers is the principal. The regulatory agent in addition to maintaining financial stability (the objective of the principal) may...

After summarizing the birth and basic notions of credit, money and banking, sections 1 to 4 review the extraordinary potential, but also the substantial core risks of fractional reserve banking. The appearance of central banks, fiduciary monies, prudential regulation and supervision, as well as...

We assess the influence of competition and capital regulation on the stability of the banking system. We particularly ask two questions: i) how does capital regulation affect (endogenous) entry; and ii) how do (exogenous) changes in the competitive environment affect bank monitoring choices and...

Nach dem Ausbruch der internationalen Finanzkrise wird hier eine erste Bilanz für den deutschen Bankensektor gezogen. Dabei zeigt sich: Es bestehen weiterhin erhebliche Risiken. Die systemische Relevanz einzelner Banken ist sogar noch gestiegen. Wesentlich für die Zukunftsfähigkeit des...

I review the state of the art of the academic theoretical and empirical literature on the potential trade-off between competition and stability in banking. There are two basic channels through which competition may increase instability: by exacerbating the coordination problem of...

The paper deals with changes in the regulation and supervision of the Latin American financial sector in the aftermath of the ‘Tequila Crisis’ of 1994–95. While it finds that both have improved, regulation and supervision cannot resolve all problems; good macroeconomic policy and...

The divergence between increasingly supranational financial marketson the one hand and still largely national supervisory structures onthe other gives rise to tensions which reduce the effectiveness ofthe supervision.(...)