Building on the work of Sorge and Virolainen (2006), we revisit the data on aggregate Finnish bank loan losses from the corporate sector, which covers the ‘Big Five’ crisis in Finland in the early 1990s. Several extensions to the empirical model are considered. These extensions are then used...

This paper investigates the evolution of the (conditional) volatility of returns on three Scandinavian markets (Finland, Norway and Sweden) over the turbulent period of the past decade, namely the overlapping periods of financial liberalisation, drastically changing macroeconomic conditions and...

In Finland the private sector borrowing started to rise rapidly in conjunction with the liberalization of capital movements and deregulation of the domestic financial sector during the second half of the 1980s. The financial deregulation coincided with and amplified an economic boom marked by...

Systemic bank problems arise for a large number of causes and in spite of both active banking supervision and market discipline. Once a problem has emerged, swift action is needed to limit further losses, avoid financial destabilization, and regain efficient markets. The restructuring exercise...

This study investigates the growth of Finnish deposit banks over the period 1980–1993. We examine the growth in balance sheets, lending and deposits of the public as well as major changes in the balance sheet structure. The focus of the study is first on the overall banking industry and second...

The macroeconomic reasons for the recent banking crises in the Nordic countries are analysed using an econometric model estimated with panel data from the 1980s and 1990s. Two alternative dependent variables are used: the ratio of banks’ loan losses to lending and enterprise bankruptcies per...

The macroeconomic determinants of banking sector distresses in the Nordic countries, Belgium, Ger-many, Greece, Spain and the UK are analysed using an econometric model estimated on panel data from partly the early 1980s to 2002. The dependent variable is the ratio of banks’ loan losses to...

This paper studies the value of a bank under different banking policy regimes. As banks run into financial distress, authorities in different countries have used different approaches to deal with the crisis. The Nordic countries provide examples of different policy approaches. The results show...

The paper focuses on the proximate causes of the Finnish savings and cooperative banks' non-performing assets in the current banking crisis. Specifically, the effects of the lending structure at the outset of the crisis and the rate of growth of lending in the latter half of the 1980s are...

The paper examines the role of bank relationships in business closures during the Finnish economic crisis of the early 1990s. We utilise a unique panel data set of 474 small and medium-sized firms, for which we have standard accounting information and for which we can in addition identify...