This paper presents recent trends in government and foreign bank ownership across countries and summarizes the evidence regarding the implications of bank ownership structure for bank performance and competition, financial stability, and access to finance. The evidence reviewed suggests that...

The Italian and German banking systems shared similar characteristics early in the 1990s but have evolved in different directions since then: Italy privatized its publicly-owned banks while Germany has maintained a large share of state-owned savings banks. Contemporaneously, banks in both...