International audienceWe compare the performance and risk of a sample of 181 large banks from 15 European countries over the 1999-2004 period and evaluate the impact of alternative ownership models, together with the degree of ownership concentration, on their profitability, cost efficiency and risk. Three main results emerge. First, after controlling for bank characteristics, country and time effects, mutual banks and government-owned banks exhibit a lower profitability than privately owned banks, in spite of their lower costs. Second, public sector banks have poorer loan quality and higher insolvency risk than other types of banks while mutual banks have better loan quality and lower asset risk than both private and public sector banks. Finally, while ownership concentration does not significantly affect a bank's profitability, a higher ownership concentration is associated with better loan quality, lower asset risk and lower insolvency risk. These differences, along with differences in asset composition and funding mix, indicate a different financial intermediation model for the different ownership forms

2203* This paper is a significant extension of a report prepared for the International Swaps and Dealers Association ( ISDA; 2000). We thank ISDA for its financial and intellectual support. We thank Richard Herring, Hiroshi Nakaso, and the other participants at the BIS conference (March 6, 2002) on ''Changes in Risk through Time: Measurement and Policy Options'' ( London) for their useful comments. The paper also profited by the comments from participants in the

The question of whether private investors can discriminate between the risk taken by banks is empirically investigated by testing the risk sensitivity of European banks' subordinated notes and debentures (SND) spreads. A unique dataset of spreads, ratings, accounting and market measures of bank risk is used for a sample of SND issued during the 1991-2000:Q1 period. Moody's Bank Financial Strength (MBFS) and FitchIBCA Individual (FII) ratings, which omit the influence of government and other external support on risk borne by investors, are found to perform better than accounting variables in explaining the variability of spreads. Empirical results support the hypothesis that SND investors are sensitive to bank risk, with the exception of SND issued by public banks, i.e. government owned or guaranteed institutions. Results also show that the risk sensitivity of SND spreads has improved during the nineties. JEL Classification Numbers: G15, G21, G28

No abstract

Evidence from many countries in recent years suggests that collateral values and recovery rates (RRs) on corporate defaults can be volatile and, moreover, that they tend to go down just when the number of defaults goes up in economic downturns. This link between RRs and default rates has traditionally been neglected by credit risk models, as most of them focused on default risk and adopted static loss assumptions, treating the RR either as a constant parameter or as a stochastic variable independent from the probability of default (PD). This traditional focus on default analysis has been partly reversed by the recent significant increase in the number of studies dedicated to the subject of recovery-rate estimation and the relationship between default and RRs. This paper presents a detailed review of the way credit risk models, developed during the last 30 years, treat the RR and, more specifically, its relationship with the PD of an obligor. Recent empirical evidence concerning this issue is also presented and discussed.(J.E.L.: G15, G21, G28).