We compare two different approaches to assess country default risk by evaluating their forecast accuracy. In particular we analyze whether market based or rating based risk assessment is superior. To evaluate the forecast accuracy we analyze the differences between several default risk measures...

This paper presents a consistent structural equation (SEM) estimate of the size and development of the shadow economy and of do-it-yourself (DIY) activities in Germany from 1970 to 2005. By 2005, they reached a level of about 17% and 5% of official GDP. While the shadow economy has regularly...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the interest margin of German banks over the period 1995–2007, explicitly addressing differences among different bank groups. We use three empirical models to focus on the following aspects: the time evolution of the interest margin, the average...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the interest margin of German banks over the period 1995-2007, explicitly addressing differences among different bank groups. We use three empirical models to focus on the following aspects: the time evolution of the interest margin, the average...

We use a compound option-based structural credit risk model to infer a term structure of banking crisis risk from market data on bank stocks in daily frequency. Considering debt service payments with different maturities this term structure assigns a separate estimator for short- and long-term...

Total factor productivity (TFP) growth allows for additional health care services under restricted resources. We examine whether hospital policy can stimulate hospital TFP growth. We exploit variation across German federal states in the period 1993 to 2013. State governments decide on hospital...

We use a compound option-based structural credit risk model to infer a term structure of banking crisis risk from market data on bank stocks in daily frequency. Considering debt service payments with different maturities this term structure assigns a separate estimator for short- and long-term...

We investigate the consistency of efficiency scores derived with two competing frontier methods in the financial economics literature: Stochastic Frontier and Data Envelopment Analysis. We sample 34,192 observations for all German universal banks and analyze whether efficiency measures yield...

We address the problem how to estimate default probabilities for sovereign countries based on market data of traded debt. A structural Merton-type model is applied to a sample of emerging market and transition countries. In this context, only few and heterogeneous default probabilities are...