This study employs text-analysis software to analyze the contents of the Federal Reserve Beige Book summary of national economic and business conditions, with a particular focus on the predictive content of the text. We show that the Beige Book language is a good predictor of economic turning...

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....

This paper explores how the legal environment affects bank behavior in 20 transition economies. Based on a newly constructed data set we find that banks' loan portfolio composition depends on the legal environment. If banks operate in a well-functioning legal environment they lend relatively...

We use a quasi-experimental research design to examine the effect of model-based capital regulation introduced under the Basel II agreement on the pro-cyclicality of bank lending and firms' access to funds during a recession. In response to an exogenous shock to credit risk in the German...

This paper examines the nature of links between the intensity of financial intermediation and economic performance that operated in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, and Sweden over the 1870-1929 period. After describing the coevolution of the financial and real sectors in...