The relative financial strength of Islamic banks is assessed empirically based on evidence covering individual Islamic and commercial banks in 18 banking systems with a substantial presence of Islamic banking. We find that (i) small Islamic banks tend to be financially stronger than small...

Cooperative banks are an important, and growing, part of many financial systems. This paper empirically analyzes the role of cooperative banks in financial stability. Contrary to some suggestions in the literature, we find that cooperative banks are more stable than commercial banks. This...

When a country's banking system becomes more linked to the global banking network, does that system get more or less prone to a banking crisis? Using model simulations and econometric estimates based on a world-wide dataset, we find an M-shaped relationship between financial stability of a...

Most financial institutions in the European Union (EU) are still based in one country, but a number of large financial institutions (LCFI) have systemic cross-border exposures. The paper explains how, despite much progress, nationally-segmented supervisory frameworks and national accountability...

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of the cross-country relationship between a direct measure of competitive conduct of financial institutions and banking system fragility. Using the Panzar and Rosse H-Statistic as a measure for competition in 38 countries during 1980-2003, we...

The proximity of the European Union, the prospect of membership, and actual entry by the New Member States (NMS) increased economic and financial integration in the region, leading to fast economic growth based on sizeable capital inflows. EU membership helped in developing sound macroeconomic...

The global financial crisis has highlighted the importance of early identification of weak banks: when problems are identified late, solutions are much more costly. Until recently, Europe has seen only a small number of outright bank failures, which made the estimation of early warning models...

The paper provides an empirical analysis of aggregate banking system ratios during systemic banking crises. Drawing upon a wide cross-country dataset, we utilize parametric and nonparametric tests to assess the power of these ratios to discriminate between sound and unsound banking systems. We...

Over the past two decades, there has been a clear trend toward integrating the regulation and supervision of banks, nonbank financial institutions, and securities markets. This paper reviews the international experience with integrated supervision. We survey the theoretical arguments for and...

To showcase their increasing focus on financial stability, many central banks and other institutions have started publishing regular reports on financial stability. The paper presents a survey of the available financial stability reports, and proposes a framework for assessing such documents. It...