This paper analyses fundamental location factors for the financial industry by investigating the economic significance of market participants' assessments of location factors and country-specific characteristics over time. A unique data set allows studying the locational attractiveness of...

Who could have thought that banks would become nationalised, that state debts would reach historical levels, that bulge bracket investment banks would go bankrupt and that the masters of the universe would be so widely vilified? Each in their own way, the four reflections collected in this...

The global financial crisis has exposed the many limits of disclosure as an effective regulatory tool in financial markets. First, the famed disciplining power of the market failed to constrain disastrous risk taking by banks. Second, most of the risks that led to the creation of the 2008...

The European Union's Capital Markets Union (CMU) is a broadly-based regulatory reforms framework that emerged from the Global Financial Crisis, the Great Recession and the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2008-2014. Launched in 2015, the CMU deployment date is set for 2019, although some...

In this paper we assess the effectiveness of large scale bailouts aiming at preventing a financial crisis from further propagating into a systemic risk. We examine the structural changes in the relationship between the sovereign and financial institutions' credit default swap spreads during the...

We explore the factors that shape the response of G20 countries to a Financial Stability Board (FSB) recommendation aimed at mitigating the risks from financial innovation. Using the FSB's Implementation Monitoring Network Surveys, we develop an index of disclosed strength of regulatory...

This paper analyzes the changing structure of the Italian and European banking firms and industry. The main aim is to identify the fundamental changes of the underlying economics of banking through the analysis of banks' balance sheets. In this paper, we provide evidence that commercial banks...

This paper first highlights the structural features of shadow banking in the euro area, focusing on investment funds. It then discusses the potential systemic risks that the recent expansion of the investment fund sector presents. While investment funds provide important intermediation services...

This paper investigates bank structural funding vis-à-vis bank failures. An empirical analysis is conducted on the defaults of commercial banks occurred in the United States between 2007 and 2009. The results highlight that structural funding position indeed plays a significant role in...