In this paper, to begin with, we define soft information as qualitative, subjective information produced by banks through the establishment of long-term lending relationships. We then highlight the importance of soft information for cooperative and social banks in the screening, pricing and...

Nicht der Wind, die Segel bestimmen den Kurs.(Michael Fuchs, deutscher Außenhandelspräsident) Diese Worte machen deutlich, dass nicht der Wind beeinflussbar ist, sondernlediglich die Segel das Mittel sind, um vorwärts zu kommen, wenn der Wind abflaut oder sich ein Sturm über das Schiff...

As the governance of financial institutions is becoming an important issue, there are many papers empirically investigating the governance issues of banks, which are stock companies. However, cooperative structured financial institutions (co-ops), which have a unique governance structure...

Given the in-built risks relating to leverage, liquidity, and fiduciary liability in banking, apartfrom tightly regulating the banks, many the jurisdictions have also put in place depositguarantee schemes for bank customers. However, a deposit guarantee scheme provides a restricted coverage, and...

In this paper we study top executive turnover in Italian Banks over the period 1993-2001. We relate the probability of survival of top executives (Presidents, CEOs and General Managers) to bank performance and the manager's local connections, controlling for (observable and unobservable) bank...

Cooperation among savings and cooperative banks was criticized by the European Commission because of potentially anti-competitive effects. In an industrial economics model of banks taking deposits and giving loans we look at regional demarcation as one of such cooperative practices. There are...

Cooperation among savings and cooperative banks was criticized by the European Commission because of potentially anti-competitive effects. In an industrial economics model of banks taking deposits and giving loans we look at regional demarcation as one of such cooperative practices. There are...

The article presents the analysis of determinants of banks' competitiveness in local financial markets, with respect to local (cooperative) banks and branches of large commercial banks. The paper also evaluates the competitive position of the banks using the synthetic measure of competitive...

Expanded use of credit unions would benefit savers, borrowers, insurance funds, taxpayers, and the financial system. Specific advantages created by the expanded use of credit unions include: higher interest rates to savers, lower interest rates to borrowers, less credit rationing during periods...