For an international sample of banks, the authors construct measures of a bank's absolute size and its systemic size defined as size relative to the national economy. They examine how a bank's risk and return, its activity mix and funding strategy, and the extent to which it faces market...

Deteriorating public finances around the world raise doubts about countries' abilities to bail out their largest banks. For an international sample of banks, this paper investigates the impact of government indebtedness and deficits on bank stock prices and credit default swap spreads. Overall,...

This paper examines the implications of bank activity and short-term funding strategies for bank risk and returns using an international sample of 1,334 banks in 101 countries leading up to the 2007 financial crisis. Expansion into non-interest income generating activities such as trading...