Banking crises can be damaging for the economy, and as the recent experience has shown, nowadays they can spread rapidly across the globe with contagious effects. Therefore, the assessment of the stability of the banking sectors is important for regulators, depositors, investors and the general...

This paper investigates the relationship between the effective tax rate on bank income and bank profit efficiency. Our sample consists of 3,472 observations from 533 publicly quoted commercial banks operating in 46 countries between 2001 and 2009. We estimate a global frontier while controlling...

This Chapter presents an application of quantile regression analysis in estimating the cost efficiency of 1,520 commercial banks operating in 73 countries during 2000-2006. This approach allows us to estimate banks' cost function for various quantiles of the conditional distribution and to...

In this study, we empirically investigate the relationship between financial and auditing requirements, capital requirements, official supervisory power, and the likelihood of receiving a qualified audit opinion. The sample consists of 71 qualified financial statements and 17,526 unqualified...

The purpose of this study is to estimate and explain the performance of non-life (i.e., property and casualty) insurers. The analysis consists of two stages. First, we propose the use of a multicriteria method to assess the condition of insurers while considering simultaneously a set of...

This study investigates whether the capital market values the efficiency of firms. After tracing stock returns and efficiency changes of 399 listed insurance firms in 52 countries during the 2002-2008 period, the paper reports a positive and statistically significant relationship between profit...

This paper provides the first cross-country study on the impact of regulations on the soundness of insurance firms, using data on over 1,700 insurance firms operating in 46 countries. We find that the power of the supervisory authorities and regulations related to technical provisions have an...

Using a sample of EU countries over the period 2002-2018, we find that a national culture of uncertainty avoidance and trust has a conditional role in the interplay between financial stress and economic growth. However, the cultural dimension of individualism does not appear to influence this...

Central banking has been traditionally characterized by mystique and an organizational culture of secrecy. While in recent years there has been a shift towards greater transparency around the globe, the degree of transparency continues to vary across countries. This is surprising because the...

Using a sample of around 340 banks from 48 countries, we examine whether and how corporate governance moderates the relationship between monetary policy interest rates and bank stability. Our results show that low interest rates reduce bank stability and have an adverse effect on risk-adjusted...