The transition of banking in Central and Eastern Europe was nothing short of remarkable. All these countries now have market oriented banking systems that are largely free of government influence. This success is often attributed to the influence of foreign banks that brought modern technology...

Modern banking institutions were virtually non-existent in the planned economies of central Europe and the former Soviet Union. In the early transition period, banking sectors began to develop during several years of macroeconomic decline and turbulence accompanied by repeated bank crises....

The first decade of transition witnessed rapid and tumultuous financial sector development. Although, few transition economies have reached the point where institutions and markets fulfill all the functions of market based financial intermediation, progress has been much more rapid than had been...

We examine the efforts of transition economies to deal with financial fragility and resolve banking cries We characterize the birthing process of banking in transition and the three essential features of banking crises in transition economies: (i) bad loans and the relationship to state owned...

Using data from 1996 to 2000, we investigate the effects of ownership, especially by a strategic foreign owner, on bank efficiency for eleven transition countries in an unbalanced panel consisting of 225 banks and 856 observations. Applying stochastic frontier estimation procedures, we compute...