This paper examines whether multinational banks have a stabilising or a destabilising role during times of financial distress. With a focus on Europe, it looks at how these banks‟ foreign affiliates have been faring during the recent financial crisis. It finds that retail and corporate lending...

This paper investigates what factors might help explain the internationalization strategy of banks and insurance companies, by comparing the determinants of cross-border M&As in the two sectors in a unified framework. The empirical analysis shows that between 1990 and 2003 the...

This paper presents some new evidence on the conflict of interest that may arise when banks underwrite corporate securities and sell them to their customers. Two alternative views are confronted; a) that commercial banks possess private information on the financial condition of their clients and...

Guarantees play an important role in debt contracts. They alter the risk for the lender, transform borrowers' incentives and, possibly, modify the equilibrium allocation of financial resources. This paper studies the role of guarantees on bank loans, using a sample of over 50,000 individual...