This paper contributes to the empirical literature on Islamic finance by investigating the feature of Islamic and conventional banks in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the period 2003-2010. We use parametric and non-parametric classification models (Linear discriminant analysis,...

The paper discusses the prospects for European Banking Union as they appear in the summer of 2014. The first part gives an overview over the problems that gave rise to the Banking Union initiative, the second part discusses the legislative measures that have been taken towards this objective....

The increased role of financial institutions in the economy leads to a need to determine those that are systemically important. The bankruptcy of such institutions creates negative effects for the economy on the global scale. The aim of this article is to identify important financial...

This paper proposes a managerial control tool that integrates risk in efficiency measures. Building on existing efficiency specifications, our proposal reflects the real banking technology and accurately models the relationship between desirable and undesirable outputs. Specifically, the...

This paper analyzes the medium to long-term implications of global warming for the evolution of global financial structures. Stern (2007) and other related scientific literature reports that greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities will very possibly lead to global temperature...

This paper aims at establishing the link between economic performance, financial depth and financial stability in the European Union from 1998 to 2011. We use the standard framework – both in terms of variables and econometric method – of Beck and Levine (2004) to estimate these...

We use a spatial Probit model to study the effect of contagion between banking systems of different countries. Applied to the late 90’s banking crisis in Asia we show that the phenomena of contagion is better seized using a spatial than a traditional Probit model. Unlike the latter, the...

Because a borrower often faces switching costs in dealing with individual banks, the financial health of any given bank might affect the borrower's cost of funds. These costs would be particularly large for firms that have close relationships with relatively few banks. The purpose of this paper...

Trade credit is one of the most important sources of short-term external finance for small firms. Previous literature has focused mainly on the substitution of bank loans for trade credit during monetary tightening among many firms, but in this paper we investigate the role of trade credit...

A common problem in credit risk management is the estimation of probabilities of rare default events in high investment grades, when sufficient default data are not available. In addressing this issue, increasing attention has been paid to the use of continuous time Markov chains for modeling...