This paper provides an overview of conceptual issues and recent research findings concerning the structure and the role of financial systems and an introduction into the new research area of comparative financial systems. The authors start by pointing out the importance of financial systems in...

Over the past decade, banks have heavily invested in technological development, bringing hope to many underserved customers. However, the benefits of bank digitalization for small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remain ambiguous. Using a sample of 179,921 SMEs and their borrowing relationships...

Recently, massive bank exits have begun to be observed around the world. What is the effect of such bank behavior on the market power of the remaining banks and on competition between rivals? Do financial crises change this relationship? We test these questions on a sample of 226 foreign banks'...

The systemic banking crises placed enormous pressure on national governments to intervene. The empirical literature is mute on what the optimal bailout program should look like to mitigate the negative consequence of government intervention in the banking sector. We document that, in general,...

Government bonds have always been a popular type of investment for banks. However, this trend has been further enhanced by the provisions of numerous banking regulations aimed at promoting investment in these securities. We empirically test the role of the fiscal incentive provided by Polish...