Our study of 602 European banks over 1996-2002 investigates how the banks' expansion into fee-based services has affected their interest margins and loan pricing. We find that higher income share from commissions and fees is associated with lower margins and loan spreads. The higher the...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between bank risk and product diversification in the changing structure of the European banking industry. Based on a broad set of European banks for the period 1996-2002, our study first shows that banks expanding into non-interest...

This study examines the stock market valuation in terms of expected gains of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) amongst banks that were announced from 1991 to 2001 in 13 European markets. M&As are classified according to activity, geographic specialization or diversification. A bivariate GARCH...

This paper aims to evaluate how the ex ante real interest rates of Euro area countries have been modified by the introduction of the euro. We use cointegration analysis with endogenous breaks in a panel data context. Our results show that the "euro effect" is significant in our sample and that...