Banking supervision offers a "public good" - financial stability for the banking system. EU policies to mitigate the effects of the global economic crisis do not deliver the predicted results ("semi-public good"). Individual Member States take ad hoc own measures to rescue assets and activities...

This paper explores the connection between "zombie" firms (firms that would typically exit in a competitive market) and bank health and the consequences for aggregate productivity in 11 European countries. Controlling for cyclical effects, the results show that zombie firms are more likely to be...

This paper investigates the impact of the SSM's launch on the market power of banks in the large euro area economies. We employ the Lerner index and the Boone estimator, non-structural measures that capture different aspects of competition. Using the results of the Lerner index, we find evidence...

We investigate the role of prudential supervisors' independence in affecting income smoothing behavior in European banks. Powerful national supervisors are predicted to influence the accounting practices of their supervised entities, shaping the properties of the accounting numbers they prepare....

The purpose of this paper, structured in three Sections, is twofold: (a) The first is to analyse the conditions under which a group of financial firms is considered to be a ‘financial conglomerate' in accordance with the (complex) definition of this term in Article 2 (point (14)) of the...

In this paper, we investigate how the regulatory stress test framework in the European Union affects banks' investment decisions and portfolio choices. Using the causal inference and event study methodology, we document a substantial impact of EU-wide stress tests in 2011, 2014 and 2016 on the...

In response to the negative impact of the financial crisis on the stability of the banking sector the architecture of the banking supervision in Europe has fundamentally changed. The European Central Bank started to take additional tasks in the banking supervision. Thus, there arise conflicts of...

The European Union (EU) has been facilitating the growth of cross-border banking groups, but bank supervision remains the responsibility of national supervisors. This mismatch has long been recognized and various proposals have been offered to address this weakness. An alternative that would...

We analyze a large merger in the Dutch banking market during the financial crisis using disaggregated data. Based on a merger simulation model, we evaluate merger-induced changes in the interest rates for savings accounts. We find that the merging banks decreased interest rates by 3 to 5 percent...

This paper examines the effect of the cross-border expansion of Nigerian banks in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ), which includes: The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. These countries were selected because 10 Nigerian banks operate in these countries and they have...