The object of this paper is to estimate if and how the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) and the Baltic Free Trade Agreement (BFTA) exerted a significant impact on intra-European trade, effectively reducing the influence of the European Association Agreements (EAs) in shaping the...

The aim of this paper is to estimate the effect of the EU’s eastern enlargement on the trade patterns of the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) that joined the Union in May 2004. In particular, the paper investigates whether and how the EU’s free trade agreements (FTAs) with the...

This paper tests for the sensitivity of R&D to financing constraints conditional on restrictions in external financing. Financing constraints of firms are identified by an exogenously calculated rating index. Restrictions in external financing are determined by (i) the specific time period...

We show that risk-mitigating incentives dominate risk-shifting incentives in fragile banks. We study security trading by banks, as banks can easily and quickly change their risk exposure within their security portfolio. For identification, we exploit different crisis shocks and supervisory...

This paper tests for the sensitivity of R&D to financing constraints conditional on restrictions in external financing. Financing constraints of firms are identified by an exogenously calculated rating index. Restrictions in external financing are determined by (i) the specific time period...

This paper documents that standard cross-sectional determinants of firm leverage also apply to the capital structure of large banks in the United States and Europe. We find a remarkable consistency in sign, significance and economic magnitude. Like non-financial firms, banks appear to have...

The 2008/2009 global crisis highlighted the vulnerabilities and inter-dependencies in the financial system including the global over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets, where significant counterparty credit risk prevails. In this paper, we deal with risk under Basel III banking regulation and...

The paper shows that mispriced deposit insurance and capital regulation were of second order importance in determining the capital structure of large U.S. and European banks during 1991 to 2004. Instead, standard cross-sectional determinants of non-financial firms’ leverage carry over to...

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of bank capital, bank liquidity level and credit risk on the profitability of commercial banks in the postcrisis period between 2011 and 2017 in Asian developed economies in comparison with the USA banking industry. The findings show that...

Using supervisory data on small and mid-sized nonfinancial enterprises (SMEs), we find that those SMEs with higher leverage faced tighter constraints in accessing bank credit after the COVID-19 outbreak in spring 2020. Specifically, SMEs with higher pre-COVID leverage obtained a smaller volume...