As, in Europe, many institutional reforms have been undertaken to establish an economic union, it can be expected that the relevance of borders has decreased over time. For the EU 15, we investigate the expected integration process of the market for corporate control - an illustrative market for...

Foreign banks have increased their market share in many emerging markets since the mid-1990s. We examine whether this contributed to financial stability in the respective host countries in the global financial crisis. Our results suggest that the stabilizing impact of foreign banks was limited...

This paper studies the nature of spillover effects in bank lending flows from advanced to the emerging market economies and identifies specific channels through which such effects occur. Based on a gravity model we examine a panel data set on cross-border bank flows from 17 advanced to 28...

Does financial sector foreign direct investment (FSFDI) trigger general capital inflows and foreign trade? Do these inflows to New EU Member States (NMS) provide positive signals (Spence, 1973) towards economic development or 'crowd out' investment and trade? While the direct impact of financial...

Credit market imperfections give rise to boom-bust cycle episodes in emerging markets. In the present paper, we aim to provide a comprehensive analysis for Eastern Europe. We focus on documenting credit market imperfections, asymmetric financing opportunities across sectors, and business cycle...

In theory, the presence of foreign banks has spillover and competition effects on domestic banks leading to higher efficiency. Next to foreign banks from industrialized countries (north-south banks), foreign banks from developing countries (south-south banks) are important investors in...

Since EMU represents a currency area with a GDP level and a world market share comparable to the United States, it is widely expected that the euro will become an important international currency. This paper suggests simple methods how to quantify the effects that EMU may exert on the roles of...

With the introduction of the euro, a single European money market has emerged. Further wholesale financial markets are considered to be highly integrated within the European Union. However, integration in retail financial markets is less advanced. For measuring financial market integration this...

The accession of several Central and Eastern European Countries to Euroland is likely to be realised within the next years. Some studies aim at analysing the suitability of these Euro aspirants for currency union with EMU by evaluating the related macroeconomic costs. Still, they are prone to...

The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) intends to increase fiscal prudence among the members of the European Monetary Union. This may be useful on grounds of political economy if national decision-making leads to inefficiently high public deficits. However, the SGP in its present form is not...