Previous attempts to understand the functioning of cooperative banks have often considered them as being similar to credit unions. However, we argue that credit unions are only a subset of cooperative financial institutions and the models used to describe their behavior cannot be generalized to...

Financial theory indicates that low interest rates hamper credit risk and profitability, two interrelated components of banks' balance sheets. Using a simultaneous equations framework, we investigate the effects of euro area monetary easing on cooperative banks' performance depending on their...