Carrying out interbank contagion simulations for the German banking sector for the period from the first quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2011, we obtain the following results: (i) The system becomes less vulnerable to direct interbank contagion over time. (ii) The loss distribution for...

We use portfolios of passive investment strategies to replicate the interest risk of banks' banking books. The following empirical statements are derived. (i) Changes in banks' market value and in their net interest income are highly correlated, irrespective of the banks' portfolio composition....

Non-maturing banking products are important asset and liability positions of banks. Their complexity inter alia arises from a non-trivial pass-through from market to product rates which makes the valuation and risk analysis challenging for both banks and banking supervisors. Based on a large...

Using unique data of a survey among small and medium-sized German banks, we analyze various aspects of risk management over a short-term and medium-term horizon. We especially analyze the effect of a 200-bp increase in the interest level. We find that, in the first year, the impairments of...

This study analyzes the determinants of relationship banking in Germany and their impact on the firms' borrowing costs. The analysis is based on unique micro data comprising firms' balance sheet data and their lending relationships with banks. We find that the number of lending relationships...

Banks face a tradeoff between diversifying and focusing their loan portfolio. In this paper we carry out an empirical study for the German market to shed light on the question whether or not the benefits of risk sharing outweigh those of specialization. We use data from the Bundesbank's...

According to standard portfolio theory, the tangency portfolio is the only efficient stock portfolio. However, empirical studies show that an investment in the global minimum variance portfolio often yields better out-of-sample results than does an investment in the tangency portfolio and...

The Jobson-Korkie-test of equal Sharpe Ratios is widely used in the performance evaluation literature. This letter has two purposes: First, it corrects a typographical error in the test statistic. Second, it shows that the test statistic can be simplified without loss of its statistical properties

We investigate whether banks actively manage their exposure to interest rate risk in the short run. Using bank-level data of German banks for the period 2011Q4- 2017Q2, we find evidence that banks actively manage their interest rate risk exposure in their banking books: They take account of...