Private sector indebtedness in Cyprus remains extremely high. Yet the Government and the banks in Cyprus continue to define the problem as being the non-performing loans (NPLs) and the proposed solution as being any tools and legislation which will improve repayment but also enable the banks to...

The paper suggests that concentration of money and a loosely regulated financial market as the main culprits impeding the efficient allocation of economic resources through a banking system that seems to have lost its way and mission. The pursuit of return without risk inevitably leads to the...

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, many governments extended public guarantees to banks. We take advantage of a natural experiment, in which long-standing public guarantees were removed for a set of German banks following a lawsuit, to identify the real effects of these guarantees on...

We use a natural experiment and matched bank/firm data to identify the effects of bank guarantees on allocative efficiency. We find that with guarantees in place unproductive firms invest more and maintain higher rates of sales growth. Moreover, firms produce less productively. Firms also...

Over last two decades, emerging and developing nations have desperately endeavored for efficient banking sectors. In this study, we argue that bank efficiency generates incentives that can impact banks’ capital holdings and the cost of financial intermediation. Analyzing a panel dataset of...

In this paper we present a model that demonstrates the effect of debt on cost of capital and value for banks with risky assets. Using a static partial equilibrium setting, both in a steady state and steady growth scenario, we derive a bank- specific valuation metric which separately attributes...