Europe's financial structure has become strongly bank-based - far more so than in other economies. We document that an increase in the size of the banking system relative to equity and private bond markets is associated with more systemic risk and lower economic growth, particularly during...

Combining euro-area credit register and carbon emission data, we provide evidence of a climate risk-taking channel in banks' lending policies. Banks charge higher interest rates to firms featuring greater carbon emissions, and lower rates to firms committing to lower emissions, controlling for...

This paper examines the quality of credit ratings assigned to banks in Europe and the United States by the three largest rating agencies over the past two decades. We interpret credit ratings as relative assessments of creditworthiness, and define a new ordinal metric of rating error based on...