The recent credit crisis and the increased internationalization of the European banks have given the debate about the role of national regulators a renewed urgency. We therefore investigate the determinants of bondholders’ abnormal returns for both domestic and cross-border bank merger announcements that involve European acquirers for the period 1998–2002. We find that bondholders’ abnormal returns are higher for Domestic Mergers than cross-border mergers, in direct contrast to evidence from equity prices where no difference is found. Further investigations in which we control for the changes in market power for example suggest this result may be indicative of investors perceiving Domestic Mergers as increasing the probability of a government bailout in case of distress. Banks’ bondholders also experience higher abnormal returns when the country of the partner bank has stricter rules in relation to forbearance of prudential regulations than the own country, and when functional diversification between lending and fee/trading activities increases.

The impact of U.S. bank loan announcements on the stock prices of the corporate borrowers has been decreasing during the two last decades with estimated two-day cumulative abnormal returns slipping from almost 200 basis points in the beginning of the 1980s to close to zero by the turn of the Century. We estimate excess returns before and after the onset of the most recent financial crisis. We find that while prior to August 2007 returns were indeed close to zero, afterwards returns jump back up to around 200 basis points. We surmise that in a booming credit market the certification of corporate borrowers by banks started to play a lesser role, while during the crisis the banks’ role was revitalized. Consistent with this interpretation we find that after August 2007 excess returns increase especially for loans with a longer maturity, and for smaller, levered, less profitable or lowly rated firms.

This paper brings together the academic literature on individual and institutional investors in order to understand the nature of difficulties faced by them and set the background for the Special Issue. This introductory article and the papers in the Special Issue contribute to the debate on how to support individuals in their savings commitments and investment decision-making and whether and how institutional investors have fulfilled their role in supporting the development of the funded pension industry. There are three main conclusions: (i) individual investors are not ready for the role that has been assigned to them in the pension industry, (ii) institutional investors are a long way short of establishing healthy relational contracts and trustworthy relationships with their clients, and (iii) more effective regulation may be needed.

We investigate the determinants of multiple-bank relationships using a new data set comprising 1079 firms across 20 European countries. We document large cross-country variation in the average number of bank relationships per firm, uncovering a richness in European financial systems that extends beyond the standard description of being “bank-dominated”. After controlling for a variety of firm-specific characteristics, we find that firms maintain more bank relationships, on average, in countries with inefficient judicial systems and poor enforcement of creditor rights. Firms also maintain more relationships in countries with unconcentrated but stable banking systems and active public bond markets. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G21, C41.

In this paper, we investigate how firms choose their banks. We focus on the role played by the decision factors, the decision maker and the decision process in determining firm–bank relationships. We have access to a unique survey that was run by a major bank in the Czech Republic. We find that firms that consider bank reputation to be an important decision factor, have fewer bank relationships and are less likely to reduce the number or quantity of services taken from their banks. Firms that emphasize the price of bank services are more likely to end relationships or to reduce services. Interestingly, the identity of the corporate decision maker determines the number of bank relationships. A Chief Financial Officer deciding on her own will opt for a lower number of banks than a committee of board members.

Bank bailouts are not “one-shot” events, as often portrayed, but rather dynamic processes with phases over time. Regulators “catch” financially distressed banks and provide aid, “restrict” these banks’ activities for ex ante unknown lengths of time, and then “release” the banks from the restrictions when capital ratios reach sufficiently healthy levels. This catch-restrict-release bailout approach is employed globally and applies to both major bailout methods capital injections (CIs) and debt guarantees (DGs). We model how a regulator that maximizes a social welfare function that includes the value of the bank and expected costs to the rest of the financial system and the real economy of its default might design and implement catch-restrict-release and test model predictions. Our data laboratory includes multiple EU nations over the financially stressful 2008-2014 period when many bailouts occurred. Findings suggest regulators bail out banks in a qualitatively consistent fashion with maximizing the social welfare function, yielding policy implications and directions for future research.

We examine the firm- and country-level determinants of foreign currency borrowing by small firms, using information on the most recent loan extended to 3101 firms in 25 transition countries between 2002 and 2005. Our results suggest that foreign currency borrowing is much stronger related to firm-level foreign currency revenues than it is to country-level interest rate differentials. Supporting the conclusion that carry-trade behavior is not the key driver of foreign currency borrowing in our sample we find no evidence that firm-level indicators of distress costs or financial transparency affect loan currency denomination. Overall, our findings suggest that retail clients which do take foreign currency loans are better equipped to bear the corresponding currency risks than is commonly thought. Policy makers should therefore take a closer look at the characteristics of borrowers before implementing regulations which are aimed at curbing foreign currency loans.

Household borrowing in a foreign currency is a widespread phenomenon in Austria. Thirteen percent of Austrian households report their housing loan to be denominated in foreign currency, mostly Swiss franc. Yet, despite its importance, peculiar character, and acute policy concerns, we know little about the attitudes and characteristics of the households involved in this type of carry trade. We analyze a uniquely detailed financial wealth survey of 2556 Austrian households to sketch a comprehensive profile of the attitudes and characteristics of the households involved. We employ both univariate tests and multivariate multinomial logit models. The survey data suggest that risk seeking, affluent, and married households are more likely to take a housing loan in a foreign currency. Financially literate or high-income households are more likely to take a housing loan in general. These findings partially assuage policy concerns about household default risk on foreign-currency housing loans or household retirement security.

This paper provides evidence on how the new international regulation on Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) impacts the market value of large banks. We analyze the stock price reactions for the 300 largest banks from 52 countries across 12 relevant regulatory announcement and designation events. We observe that the new regulation negatively affects the value of the newly regulated banks, yet that the official designation of banks as “globally systemically important” itself has a partly offsetting positive impact. A cross-sectional analysis of the valuation effects with respect to, for example, government ownership of banks supports the view that the positive reaction to these designations can be attributed to a Too-Big-to-Fail (TBTF) perception by investors. The fact that these valuation effects emerge from a regulation specifically designed to reduce the costs and risks of Too-Big-to-Fail demonstrates the inherently paradoxical nature of the new regulation. These results further suggest that even though the individual components of the regulation have been effective, revealing the identities of G-SIBs eliminated ambiguity about the presence of government guarantees, and thereby may have run counter to the regulators’ intent to contain the effects of TBTF.

This paper investigates the effect of interbank market integration on small firm finance in the build-up to the 2007–2008 financial crisis. We use a comprehensive data set that contains contract terms on individual loans to 6047 firms across 14 European countries between 1998:01 and 2005:12. We account for the selection that arises in the loan request and approval process. Our findings imply that integration of interbank markets resulted in less stringent borrowing constraints and in substantially lower loan rates. The decrease was strongest in markets with competitive banking sectors. We also find that in the most rapidly integrating markets, firms became substantially overleveraged during the build-up to the crisis.