Despite the ongoing consolidation trend in the banking industry and the attention some mergers (in particular between large banks) have been receiving, there is no consistent picture of the impact of mergers on the stability of the financial system. In this paper, we aim to provide a universal...

Understanding the impact of changing interest rates onto banks' net interest margin is of central importance for various stakeholders. The primary focus lies often on changes in the interest level. However, changes in the steepness are a second driver which also significantly impacts banks'...

Using unique data of a survey among small and medium-sized German banks, we analyze various aspects of risk management over a short-term and medium-term horizon. We especially analyze the effect of a 200-bp increase in the interest level. We find that, in the first year, the impairments of...

We analyse the ftnancial forecasts small and medium-sized German banks provided in several waves of a quantitative survey, called LIRES, and compare them with the results the banks actually realized. Based on this unique data set, we ftnd that the predictions are relevant, especially concerning...

This paper shows that the supply side of credit is a major factor for the phenomenonof hampered interest rate pass-through in monopolistic banking markets. Our data,covering all 1,555 small and medium sized banks in Germany, provides a clear wayto partial out demand shocks; we are thus able to...

Based on an analysis of changes in the yields of German government bonds, we propose a simple model for the term structure of interest rates and show empirically that this model with two parameters (relating to the interest level and slope of the term structure) fits empirically well the data...