We examine evidence for a systematic underperformance of Germany's state-owned banks in the current financial crisis and study if the bank losses can be traced to the quality of bank governance. For this purpose, we examine the biographical background of 593 supervisory board members in the 29...

Eine Auswertung der Lebensläufe von 426 Aufsichtsratsmitgliedern in den 29 größten deutschen Banken, die von Marcel Thum, ifo Dresden, und Harald Hau, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, vorgenommen wurde, zeigt, dass Finanzmarkt- und Bankerfahrung von Aufsichtsratsmitgliedern besonders in den...

This paper provides evidence for regulatory arbitrage within the class of assetbacked securities (ABS) based on individual asset holding data of German banks. I find that those banks operating with tight regulatory constraints pick the securities with the highest yield and lowest collateral...

If regulation fails to differentiate between priced and idiosyncratic risk, it incentivizes investors to reach for yield. Studying securitization exposures on the balance sheets of German banks, I show evidence consistent with this prediction. Banks with tight regulatory constraints (low capital...