This paper offers a comprehensive comparison of the structure of banking and financial markets in the euro area. Based on this, several hypotheses about the role of banks in monetary policy transmission are developed. Many of the predictions that have been proposed for the U.S. are deemed...

Financial stability in Europe has received renewed attention with the advent of a common currency, wave of mergers and acquisitions among financial institutions, and greater market competition (e.g. ECB, 1999; IMF, 1999; OECD, 1999). This paper examines whether EU country banking systems are...

Analyzing the topological properties of the network of shareholding relationships among the Euro Area banks we evaluate the relevance of a bank in the financial system respect to ownership and control of other banks. We find that the degree distribution of the European banking network displays...