This paper examines the effect of mergers on the performance of banks. We use a unique and exhaustive panel data set of mergers of Austrian banks covering the period from 1996 to 2002. A probit selection equation is formulated to explain the adoption of a merger strategy. We use various matching...

Stylised facts suggest that there is some "spatial structure" in the dynamics of cross-border lending of Austrian regional banks that seems to be closely related to the eastward enlargement of the European Union. This short paper provides evidence that a stark space-related dependency of...

The fast adoption of Western-style democracy and market economy principles as established by EU standards by many of the Eastern European "transformation countries" since the early 1990s should have raised cross-border lending by banks based in "old" EU member countries to clients resident in...

In this paper we make an attempt to extend the WIFO trade-weighted exchange rate index (TWI_ER) by computing export-weighted exchange rate indices for eight Austrian manufacturing industries covering the period from 1995 to 2005. The TWI_ER by manufacturing industries improves upon the previous...