Banks play a role in the corporate governance of firms as well as acting as debt financiers around the world. Universal banks can have control over borrowing firms by representation on the board of directors or by holding shares through direct stakes or institutional holdings. We investigate the...

This paper investigates whether there is any consistency between banks' financial strength ratings (bank rating) and their risk-return profiles. It is expected that banks with high ratings tend to earn high expected returns for the risks they assume and thereby have a low probability of...

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Aufarbeitung der Hintergründe der Subprime-Krise sowie der nachfolgenden internationalen Banken- und Finanzkrisen. Auf dieser Basis werden Vorschläge diskutiert, wie die erkannten Schwachstellen im Finanzsystem repariert bzw. behoben werden...

We exploit the 2007-2009 financial crisis to analyze how risk relates to bank business models. Institutions with higher risk exposure had less capital, larger size, greater reliance on short-term market funding, and aggressive credit growth. Business models related to significantly reduced bank...

This paper introduces a new and comprehensive dataset on “alternative” banks in EU and OECD countries. Alternative banks (e.g. ethical, social or sustainable banking) experienced a recent increase in media interest and have been hailed as an answer to the financial crisis but no research...

This survey reviews the literature on the political economy of financial structure, broadly defined to include the size of capital markets and banking systems as well as the distribution of access to external finance across firms.The theoretical literature on the institutional basis for...

We develop a model of endogenous lobby formation in which wealth inequalityand political accountability undermine entry and financial development. In-cumbents seek a low level of effective investor protection to prevent potentialentrants from raising capital. They succeed because they can...

Excessive credit creation by banks was at the root of the recent financial crisis. Nevertheless, micro-prudential regulation lacks a clear methodology to identify these banks. Combining arguments from banking and auction theory, we show that overoptimism causes excessive lending, subsequently...