CDS spreads are believed to reflect credit risks but remained stable for major UK banks during the subprime crisis. To explain this gap, we employ probabilities of default (PD) from stock options. These may differ from those obtained from debt instruments but are useful for practical reasons and...

The Central European banking industry is dominated by foreign-owned banks. During the recent crisis, for the first time since the transition, foreign parent companies were frequently in worse financial conditions than their subsidiaries. This situation created a unique opportunity to study new...

We examine the effect of competition on banking stability using a new measure of competition based on the reallocation of profits from inefficient banks to efficient ones (Boone, 2008). Examining a sample of European banks, we show that this measure does capture competition, that competition is...

Cross-border banking activity within the Asia-Pacific region has intensified since the Great Financial Crisis of 2007−09. In the years leading up to the crisis, much of the cross-border activity in the region had been driven by dollar credit intermediated largely by European banks. In the wake...

The 2008 financial crisis is reminiscent of a bank run, but not quite. In particular, it is financial institutions withdrawing deposits from some core financial institutions, rather than depositors running on their local bank. These core financial institutions have invested the funds in...

During extreme financial crises, all of a sudden, the financial world that was once rife with profit opportunities for financial institutions (banks, for short) becomes exceedingly complex. Confusion and uncertainty follow, ravaging financial markets and triggering massive flight-to-quality...

Diversification through pooling and tranching securities was supposed to mitigate creditor runs in financial institutions by reducing their credit risk, yet many financial institutions holding diversified portfolios experienced creditor runs in the recent financial crisis of 2007-2009. We...