This paper examines the trends and composition of volatility across European banking systems from January 1988 to December 2010. While there is no evidence of a long-term trend in the average level of banking system volatility, there is a change in its composition resulting from the growing...

Using 30 years of data on the acquisition of failed US commercial banks via Purchase and Assumption (P&A) transactions managed by the FDIC, and a matched-sample approach, we find long-term improvements in bank profitability, capital strength and portfolio risk for the combined entity. These...

The financial crisis that erupted in 2007 has brought the issues of the size, risk, and regulation of banks to the attention of a wide audience. It is difficult to open a broadsheet newspaper or a business magazine without being confronted with some aspect of bank behaviour, be it their risk...

Utilising a novel empirical approach and an extensive sample of listed European banks, we identify which bank characteristics offer a shelter from systemic shocks and compare the relative effects of several hypothetical prudential rules on a bank’s risk exposure. While the results show that...

By employing a sample of 20,956 observations of non-financial SMEs headquartered in the Euro area, between 2009 and 2015, we test whether young businesses are more likely to face credit rejections from lenders than their older peers. Our findings appear to confirm our suspicions that new...

In this paper, we aim to assess how a specific socio-institutional environment, identified according to the level of corruption, may affect the access to credit for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Using a sample of 68,115 observations - drawn from the ECB-SAFE survey -...