This paper extends the Schure and Wagenvoort (1999) study, which considers economies of scale and efficiency in European banking, in a number of directions. Firstly, we introduce what we believe to be important improvements to estimating efficiency. Secondly, we examine more closely the...

The traditional econometric techniques for frontier models, namely the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA), the Thick Frontier Approach (TFA) and the Distribution Free Approach (DFA) have in common that they depend on a priori assumptions that are, whether feasible or not, difficult to test. This...

This paper investigates the cost efficiency of 1974 credit institutions across 15 European countries over the five-year period following the implementation of the Second Banking Directive in 1993. The Recursive Thick Frontier Approach is employed to estimate a Augmented Cobb-Douglas cost...

We introduce a new panel data estimation technique for cost and production functions: the Recursive Thick Frontier Approach (RTFA). RTFA has two advantages over existing thick frontier methods. First, technical inefficiency is allowed to be dependent on the explanatory variables of the frontier...

We consider the provision of deposit insurance as the outcome of a non-cooperative policy game between nations. Nations compete for deposits in order to protect their banking systems from the destabilizing impact of potential capital flight. Policies are chosen to attract depositors who...

We analyse legislative bargaining in the European Union. In our model, EU member states bargain over the policy choices underlying legislation and over its `template': (1) the degree of discretion at the application stage, and (2) whether the discretionary power is delegated to the Commission...

Lenders that fund larger shares of a syndicated loan typically receive larger percentage upfront fees than smaller lenders. This paper studies sovereign syndicated loan contracts in the period 1982-2006 to explore this fact. In our dataset of 288 contracts large lenders obtain on average an 8.5...