Following the controversial discussion on the banking industry's performance in Europe and particularly in Germany, this study empirically analyses the main driving forces of banks' and the banking systems' profitability: Using recursive partitioning, the sample of around 3,000 European banks is...

This paper presents a new technique for grouping retail loans into homogenous risk pools, which adheres to the provisions of Basel II. We use recursive partitioning and test it on a data set of approximately 413,000 auto loans. By classifying loans according to selective predictors of default,...

The debate on ratification or revision of the proposed new Consumer Credit Directive continues. The European Parliament neither rejected nor approved the Commission's proposal at the plenary session on November 5, 2003. While the Commission insists on defending the merits of the proposal, the...

Social trading networks provide access to an innovative type of delegated portfolio management. This paper provides a rationale for how these platforms are organized and gives some very first empirical insights to make social trading more tangible for both academics and practitioners alike....