We investigate the impact of local banking market concentration on small and medium-sized enterprises' access to finance in Ukraine, as an under-researched case of a country where crime and corruption rates are high. We combine firm-level observations from the EBRD's BEEPS survey with unique,...

We investigate the impact of cross-border takeovers on target banks' profitability, efficiency, and market share in Ukraine, an exemplar of a country with poor institutional quality. We rely on a combination of propensity score matching with the difference-in-difference methodology, and our main...

We investigate foreign banks' interest in financing small and medium sized enterprises in Ukraine, a country where massive foreign bank entry took place in a late stage of transition. We use unique, self-collected bank-level data on banks' involvement with SMEs in 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2010. We...

We examine to what extent a specific aspect of national culture — uncertainty avoidance — can explain cross‐country variations in (dis)trust in banks. Relying on data from the World Values Survey, we find that trust in banks is lower in countries that score high for Hofstede's uncertainty...

We examine to what extent (aspects of) national culture can explain cross-country variations in financial literacy. Our results, for a sample of 92 countries, show that Hofstede's dimensions of power distance and individualism explain, respectively, over 40 and 60 per cent – which is...

We investigate the impact of cross-border takeovers on the performance of target banks in Ukraine. We combine propensity score matching and a difference-in-difference methodology, checking for temporary unobservables. Acquirers mainly targeted large less-capitalised banks with average efficiency...

We briefly describe that the Central Asian countries commonly experienced a sharp decline in the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates in early transition period that led to a sharp decline in the number of employed. The recovery in growth rates then has been driven by a surge in natural...

We review Uzbekistan's banking sector and its reforms. We do so because the country's precautions approach to banking sector restructuring stands in a marked contrast to other transition economies. The country was precautions towards licencing new private banks' entry and foreign banks. Direct...