When liquidity plays an important role as in times of financial crisis, asset prices in some markets may reflect the amount of liquidity available in the market rather than the future earning power of the asset. Mark-to-market accounting is not a desirable way to assess the solvency of a...

Multinational groups (MNGs) produce a major part of global output. Further, a substantial fraction of international transactions happens to be internal, i.e., intermediate products and services are traded between group members. Thus, the problem of co-ordinating economic decisions like...

The German Commercial Code (HGB) allows banks to build visible reserves for general banking risks according to section 340g HGB. These GBR reserves may, in addition to their risk provisioning function, be used to enhance capital endowment, for internal financing, signaling or earnings management...

Section 340f of the German Commercial Code allows banks to provision against the special risks inherent to the banking business by building hidden reserves. Beyond risk provisioning, these reserves are implicitly accepted as an earnings management device. By analyzing financial statements of...

Dem Eigenkapital von Unternehmen kommt eine herausragende Bedeutung zu, weil es den Unternehmen Verfügungsmacht über Haftungspotentiale verschafft. Insbesondere gilt dies für Banken, da sie eine zentrale Stellung in den Zahlungs- und Haftungsbeziehungen einer Volkswirtschaft einnehmen und die...

Der Periodenerfolg im Kreditgeschäft hängt nicht nur von den Zinserträgen, sondern auch von der Bewertung der Kreditforderungen unter Berücksichtigung des Ausfallrisikos ab. Hier werden Wertberichtigungen für eingetretene Verluste, für erwartete Verluste, und solche zur Berücksichtigung...

This study investigates the development of income-decreasing discretionary expenses surrounding CEO turnovers at banks. We expect incoming CEOs to take an earnings bath during the initial stage of their tenure. For a sample of German banks over the period 1993-2012, we document that (1) incoming...

Accounting standard setters are considering the wider use of fair value accounting. This paper focuses on the financial stability implications of a move in the banking sector from the current accounting framework to full fair value accounting. A simulation exercise is performed on how various...

Cash pooling is a bank service that allows corporates to externalise the intra-group cash management, and thus manage their global liquidity effectively with lower costs. Although there is little quantitative information on the significance of the phenomenon, cash pooling appears to have become...

The financial crisis has highlighted the necessity of discussions on the adequacy of banking regulation and accounting standard-setting for financial institutions. We compare the development of several variables in this context between commercial banks, cooperative banks and savings banks from...