This is a chapter for a forthcoming volume Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press 2014) (eds. Eilís Ferran, Niamh Moloney, and Jennifer Payne). It provides an overview of EU financial regulation from the first banking directive up until its most recent developments in...

We investigate whether saving Wall Street through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) really saved Main Street during the recent financial crisis. Our difference-in-difference analysis suggests that TARP statistically and economically significantly increased net job creation and net hiring...

This study investigates if the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) distorted price competition in U.S. banking. Political indicators reveal bailout expectations after 2009, manifested as beliefs about the predicted probability of receiving equity support relative to failing during the TARP...

This paper examines the impact of charter type, holding company structure, and measures of bank fragility on the likelihood of a bank bailout or failure during the late 2000s financial crisis. The empirical results indicate that established institutions were more likely to fail if they were...

We design a novel test for changes in market discipline based on the relation between firm-specific risk, credit spreads, and equity returns. We use our method to analyze the evolution of bailout expectations during the recent financial crisis. We find that bailout expectations peaked in...

The global financial crisis underlined that sound and effective bank regulation is vital to financial stability. Assessments of the global financial crisis invariably point to ineffective finance regulation and supervision as the main reasons for the onset of the crisis and its severity. In...

“Too big to fail” traditionally refers to a bank that is perceived to generate unacceptable risk to the banking system and indirectly to the economy as a whole if it were to default and unable to fulfill its obligations. Such a bank generally has substantial liabilities to other banks...

Bank leverage ratios have made an impressive and largely unopposed return; they are mostly used alongside risk-weighted capital requirements. The reasons for this return are manifold, and they are not limited to the fact that bank equity levels in the wake of the global financial crisis (GFC)...

We examine the moral hazard effects of bank recapitalizations by assessing the impact of the U.S. TARP program on market discipline exerted by subordinated debt-holders using a sample of 123 bank holding companies over the period 2004-2013. Predicted distress risk has a consistently positive and...

Under the Basel capital rules for internationally active banks, subordinated debt has always been permitted to contribute a part of the bank's regulatory capital requirements. This is a surprising concession to banks, at first sight, since debt, as a liability, cannot contribute to equity (ie...