We explore the impact of concentration in the banking markets on the capital structure of publicly quoted non-financial firms in the EU15 over the period 1997- 2005, an era marked by intensive merger activity in the banking sector. Our main finding is a negative and significant relationship...

We investigate whether or not banks play a positive role in the ownership structure of European listed firms. We distinguish between banks and other institutional investors as shareholders and examine empirically the relationship between financial institution ownership and the performance of the...

This paper investigates how monetary policy interventions by the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve affect the stock market perception of bank systemic risk. In a first step, we identify monetary policy shocks using a structural VAR approach by exploiting the changes of the volatility...

We investigate whether sovereign bond holdings of European banks are determined by a risk-return trade-off. Using data between 2011 and 2018 for 75 European banks, we confirm that banks exhibited risk-taking behavior during the sovereign debt crisis, e.g., due to moral suasion. In the period...

We analyse the pass-through of money market rates to retail interest rates at the disaggregate level in the Belgian banking market. First, we measure the extent of pass-through for a total of fourteen products. We find that the response varies over loans and deposits and depends positively on...

This paper investigates contagion between bank risk and sovereign risk in Europe over the period 2006-2011. Since this period covers various stages of the banking and sovereign crisis, it offers a fertile ground to analyze bank/sovereign risk spillovers. We define contagion as excess...

The aim of this study is to assess the contributions of investment banking to the economy with a particular focus on the German economy. To this end we analyse both the economic benefits and the costs stemming from investment banking. The study focuses on investment banks as this part of banking...

In this paper we challenge the view that corporate bonds are always arm's length debt. We analyze the effect of bond ratings on the stock price return to acquirers in M&A transactions, which tend to have significant effects on creditor wealth. We find acquirers abnormal returns to be higher if...

In October 2006, Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS) introduced new ratings for banks that account for the potential of government support. The rating changes are not a reflection of any changes in the respective banks' credit fundamentals. We use this natural experiment to evaluate the...

This paper analyses cross-border contagion in a sample of European banks from January 1994 to January 2003. We use a multinomial logit model to estimate the number of banks in a given country that experience a large shock on the same day ('coexceedances') as a function of variables measuring...