Citation
Hagendorff, J. (2009), "Trends in European banking", Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Vol. 17 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jfrc.2009.31117baa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Trends in European banking
Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Volume 17, Issue 2
This special issue of Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance is devoted to aspects of European banking. The academic literature on banking, possibly as most other areas of economic research, is dominated by work with a strong US focus. However, especially in banking, where national institutional frameworks, including political pressures, play an important role, it is worthwhile to examine research questions from perspectives that specifically address these national contexts.
I am writing this editorial against the background of continuing distress in the banking sector as well as the wider credit markets. The three papers in this special issue all have applications to these events and make contributions that will help to sharpen policy debates around these issues.
Responses to the banking crisis in Europe have largely been confined to national initiatives. In the first paper, Donato Masciandaro, Maria Nieto and Marc Quintyn survey the bank regulatory landscape across the European Union (EU) and assess the degree to which regulatory designs have converged over recent years. The authors argue that while the degree of supervisory convergence is low, there is no single superior model of bank supervision.
In the second paper, Valeriya Dinger and Jürgen von Hagen critically evaluate the level of banking sector development in central and eastern Europe (CEE). The authors stress that the commonly cited underdevelopment of the CEE banking sectors is overstated. Given that, many CEE countries are amongst the hardest hit by the global financial crisis, their paper makes very interesting reading.
In the final paper, Barbara Casu and Claudia Girardone examine competition issues in European banking. The authors stress that market concentration is not always an adequate proxy for competition. This paper is particularly relevant in the light of recent regulatory moves which have further increased market concentration in some EU member states (for example, the merger between Lloyds TSB and HBOS in the UK).
I would like to thank all authors that have contributed to the high-quality papers in this special issue on European banking.
Jens HagendorffGuest Editor