Experts on investments and financial products assume that women are less amenable to risks and therefore put their money into secure investment products. A current study conducted by the DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research) challenges this view. The study demonstrates that men and women are equally likely to take a chance on risky investments – assuming that they have the same financial resources at their disposal. A general cliché may not longer be true: that sex is a determinant factor in investment decisions and that the difference in attitudes toward investment between men and women is a result of gender-based investment attitudes. Women are likely to have cautious investment habits because – as a rule – they have only half the investment resources available that men have at their disposal.

This study investigates the importance of social norms for shaping women's and men's decision to participate in the stock market, aiming to disentangle the different channels playing a role in this decision. Gender role asymmetry is indicated by the country's rank in the gender equality index of the World Economic Forum. Using data from four national household surveys, we find that in Italy – the country with highly asymmetric gender role prescriptions – women's risk-taking behavior responds to this non-supportive environment. Consistent with the theory of social identity, Italian women refrain from stock market participation more than their self-reported risk tolerance levels would suggest. In contrast, in the three countries with a lower asymmetry in gender role prescriptions, no exaggerated female backing off from investing in stocks is observable. The result is robust to separately analyzing sub-samples of singles and couples. However, women who self-select into stock market participation invest the same portfolio share in stocks as do their male peers – independent of the society's degree of gender role divergence. 

According to the literature on traditional banking, lenders often discriminate against female borrowers. However, studies of Peer-to-Peer lending in the United States find that female borrowers have better chances of obtaining funds than do males. We provide evidence on the success of female borrowers at a large German peer-to-peer lending platform. Our results show that there is no effect of gender on the individual borrower's chance to receive funds on this platform, ceteris paribus. Several robustness checks confirm this finding. Hence, female discrimination seems to be eased by the wisdom of the lending crowd'.

We investigate whether the willingness to take investment risk is a sex-linked trait and link the results to the country’s gender equality regime. Our empirical analysis involves household data on financial asset holdings as well as on self-reported risk tolerance for Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Of those countries, Italy is by far the country with the greatest degree of gender inequality according to the 2009 Global Gender Gap Report. Two stages of building a portfolio of financial assets are analyzed. For the first-stage decision of whether to invest in risky assets in the first place, gender is found to have no effect in Austria, the Netherlands and Spain but does have an impact in Italy. However, even for Italy, it seems to be irrelevant in the second-stage decision about the share of wealth invested in the risky assets. We infer from these findings that, for countries with a high degree of gender equality, it is inappropriate to base financial advice primarily on gender.

This paper explores the relationship between the self-declared risk aversion of private investors and theirpropensity to hold incomplete portfolios of financial assets. The analysis is based on household surveydata from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) that provides a reliable measure of individual attitudestoward financial risk. Our findings suggest that more risk averse households tend to hold incompleteportfolios consisting mainly of a few risk-free assets. We also find that the propensity to acquire additionalassets is highly dependent on whether liquidity and safety needs are met.

This paper studies the impact of credit rating agency (CRA) announcements on the value of the Euro and the yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish long-term sovereign bonds during the culmination of the Eurozone debt crisis in 2011-2012. The employed GARCH models show that CRA downgrade announcements negatively affected the value of the Euro currency and also increased its volatility. Downgrading increased the yields of French, Italian and Spanish bonds but lowered the German bond's yields, although Germany's rating status was never touched by CRA. There is no evidence for Granger causality from bond yields to rating announcements. We infer from these findings that CRA announcements significantly influenced crisis-time capital allocation in the Eurozone. Their downgradings caused investors to rebalance their portfolios across member countries, out of ailing states' debt into more stable borrowers' securities.

This paper studies the impact of credit rating agency (CRA) announcements on the value of the Euro and the yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish long-term sovereign bonds during the culmination of the Eurozone debt crisis in 2011–2012. The employed GARCH models show that CRA downgrade announcements negatively affected the value of the Euro currency and also increased its volatility. Downgrading increased the yields of French, Italian and Spanish bonds but lowered the German bond’s yields, although Germany’s rating status was never touched by CRA. There is no evidence for Granger causality from bond yields to rating announcements. We infer from these findings that CRA announcements significantly influenced crisis-time capital allocation in the Eurozone. Their downgradings caused investors to rebalance their portfolios across member countries, out of ailing states’ debt into more stable borrowers’ securities.

We estimate firms’ cash flow sensitivity of cash to empirically test how the financial system’s structure and level of development influence their financial constraints. For this purpose we merge Almeida et al.’s work, a path-breaking design for evaluating a firm’s financial constraints, with that of Levine, who paved the way for comparative analysis of financial systems around the world. We conjecture that a country’s financial system, both in terms of its structure and its level of development, should influence the cash flow sensitivity of cash of constrained firms but leave unconstrained firms unaffected. We test our hypothesis with a large international sample of 30,000 firm-years from 1989 to 2006. Our findings reveal that both the structure of the financial system and its level of development matter. Bank-based financial systems provide constrained firms with easier access to external financing.

This paper studies the reaction of the Euro's value againstmajor currencies to sovereign rating announcements from Moody's, S&P and Fitch CRAs during the Eurozone debt crisis in 2010--2012 based on eventstudy methodology combined with GARCH models. We also analyze how theyields of French, Italian, German and Spanish government long-term bondswere affected by CRA announcements. Our results reveal that CRA downgrades, watchlist and outlook announcements had no impact on the value of the Euro currency but increased exchange rate volatility. At the same time, downgrades as well as negative outlook announcements increased the yields of French, Italian, and Spanish bonds and evenaffected the German bond's yields. This shows that the monetary union hasled to a breakdown of the consequences of the rating shocks between currency value and sovereign bond yields. The reason is that part of the rating shock is absorbed by an internal repricing of sovereign bonds.

In this policy brief, we argue that the financial innovations triggered by the FinTech industry have the potential to affect the transmission of monetary policy as well as the informational content of important monetary indicators. The growing FinTech industry could contribute substantially to the emergence of nonbank finance as a substitute for traditional commercial bank finance. While the overall effect of nonbank finance on monetary policy transmission is not yet clear, we argue that regulators and policy makers need to closely monitor the potential effects of FinTech on monetary policy transmission and to adequately adjust financial sector regulation.

This special issue of the Eurasian Economic Review delves into the critical relationships between macro-financial policy frameworks and environmental sustainability, emphasizing the urgent challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. These environmental crises pose significant threats to global economic and financial stability, underscoring the necessity of integrating environmental considerations into macro-financial policies to foster sustainability and resilience in economic policymaking. Through a collection of research papers, this issue explores innovative strategies for developing comprehensive policy frameworks that harmonize monetary, financial, and fiscal policies with environmental objectives. It emphasizes the need for advanced methods to assess and manage the financial risks of climate change and environmental degradation. Underscoring the need for a multidisciplinary approach, the research advocates for the collaboration of economists, environmental scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders to develop effective macro-financial policies. These policies aim to mitigate environmental risks, enhance environmental sustainability, and preserve biodiversity. The issue calls for further research to refine models that accurately predict the macro-financial impacts of environmental risks and assess the effectiveness of policy measures, paving the way for a sustainable future in the face of escalating environmental challenges.

Fragen der Finanzierung des Rückbaus von Atomkraftwerken und der Entsorgung radioaktiver Abfälle stehen im Mittelpunkt der gegenwärtigen Diskussion um die weitere Ausgestaltung des Atomausstiegs. Es besteht die Gefahr, dass sich die Atomkraftwerksbetreiber ihrer finanziellen Verantwortung langfristig zumindest teilweise entziehen. Die bisherigen Erfahrungen zeigen, dass es beim Rückbau von Atomkraftwerken und bei der Entsorgung radioaktiver Abfälle oft zu erheblichen Verzögerungen sowie Kostensteigerungen kommt. Bisher fehlt nach wie vor ein Endlager für hochradioaktive Abfälle, während beim derzeit im Bau befindlichen Endlager Konrad für schwach- bis mittelradioaktive Abfälle die genehmigten Kapazitäten absehbar zu knapp bemessen sind. Zur langfristigen Sicherung der Finanzierung des Kraftwerksrückbaus und der Entsorgung radioaktiver Abfälle werden derzeit die Bildung von unternehmensinternen Fonds, die Schaffung eines öffentlich-rechtlichen Fonds sowie Mischformen dieser Konzepte diskutiert. Aufgrund der Interdependenzen zwischen Rückbau und Entsorgung sowie des langen abzudeckenden Zeitraums erscheint die Einrichtung eines öffentlich-rechtlichen Fonds am besten geeignet, um die Finanzierung dauerhaft zu sichern, das Verursacherprinzip zu wahren und die finanziellen Risiken für die Gesellschaft zu mindern. Die Bundesregierung sollte deshalb einen öffentlich-rechtlichen Fonds einrichten, der sowohl der Finanzierung des Rückbaus der Atomkraftwerke als auch der Entsorgung radioaktiver Abfälle dient. Die Zuführung der notwendigen Mittel zum Fonds sollte zeitlich gestreckt werden, um den Unternehmen die Anpassung zu erleichtern.

One of the most pressing public priorities in Germany at present is how to organize the energy transition. However, the cost of stabilizing the financial sector as well as the fiscal pact and the debt brake mean that the government has limited financial resources. Consequently, the availability of private capital, whether in the form of equity or debt, is becoming a decisive factor in the success of the German energy transition. Recently, there have been increasing indications that banks are very reluctant to provide loans and are focusing on the potential risks of financing the switch to renewable energy. At the same time, however, the financial sector is also wrestling with political decision-makers about the capital requirements of the loans concerned. Yet, reducing the capital base in the banking sector is out of the question. Instead, the government should also call for appropriate involvement of the major banks in financing the energy transition in return for implicit guarantees for those banks, just as financial aid from the government was linked to loans being granted to SMEs in 2008. At the same time, the risks have to be spread more widely. Know-how and financial strength of private equity funds may be of help here.

Many banks are now too big, complex, and closely interconnected to be liquidated. When they run into difficulties, they threaten the entire financial system of their economic area. Five years of financial crisis have not alleviated but exacerbated this problem. The cost of stabilizing banks is enormous, posing serious challenges to the states affected. In addition, such state guarantees create dangerously false incentives: they encourage managers and investors to engage into high risk-taking, and favor the further expansion of banks. At present, solutions are being sought in the introduction of a separated banking system, with the aim of creating smaller, less complex financial institutions that would be easier to unwind and of protecting the deposit and loan-granting part more effectively from the risks of proprietary trading. In February 2013, the German federal government presented its plans to break up German universal banks into retail and trading institutions.1 However, this article shows that under various scenarios for such a separation, many financial institutions would still exceed the size at which a bank has ever been liquidated successfully - that is, without disastrous consequences for the economy as a whole. The government proposals also envisage the deposit bank and the "residual bank" remaining united within a holding structure; it is questionable whether this would suffice to ensure "unbundling" and thus the feasibility of liquidation. The authors are therefore not convinced that the proposed legislation can achieve its declared objective of enabling the liquidation of large banks and avoiding the associated state guarantees that aggravate the problem.

Member states of the euro area have been struggling with the lega-cies of the severe financial and economic crisis for four years now. But debt ratios are still rising. The crisis countries of the euro area were able to “buy time” with bailout packages and low interest rates. But as long as the other influencing factors are not developing more positively, it remains uncertain whether the current stabilization of the euro debt crisis is sustainable. The ECB’s low interest rate policy undoubtedly offers some relief in this situation. First, the interest burden for most countries in the euro area has declined in recent years. This effect has tended to stifle increases in the debt ratio. Se-cond, low interest rates strengthen the economy. In turn, this increa-ses government tax revenue and improves the primary balance. Low interest rates also played an important role in driving down the debt ratio in the US. Between 1946 and 1953, the US was able to almost halve its debt with no haircuts. However, negative primary balances, low growth, and low inflation do not allow for a recovery similar to the one in the US after World War II. For this reason, low interest rates currently appear to be the only lever in the euro area which could be used to make euro area countries’ debt more sustainable. What is essential now is that they seize this opportunity.

Seit vier Jahren kämpfen die Staaten des Euroraums gegen die Hinterlassenschaften der schweren Finanz- und Wirtschafts-krise an. Aber noch immer steigen die Schuldenquoten. Für die Krisenstaaten des Euroraums wurde zwar mit Rettungspaketen und Niedrigzinsen „Zeit erkauft“. Aber solange sich die anderen Einflussgrößen nicht positiver entwickeln, bleibt es ungewiss, ob die momentane Beruhigung der Euro-Verschuldungskrise nachhaltig ist. Zweifelsfrei stellt in dieser Situation die Niedrigzinspolitik der EZB eine Erleichterung dar. Zum einen ist die Zinslast für die meisten Eurostaaten in den letzten Jahren zurückgegangen. Dieser Effekt dämpft tendenziell das Wachstum der Schuldenquote. Zum anderen stärken die niedrigen Zinsen die Wirtschaft. Dies wiederum erhöht die Steuereinnahmen des Staates und verbessert den Primärsaldo. Niedrigzinsen haben auch bei der Rückführung der Schuldenquote in den USA eine große Rolle gespielt. Zwischen 1946 und 1953 konnten die USA ihren Schuldenstand ohne Schuldenschnitt fast halbieren. Negative Primärsalden, niedrige Wachstumsraten und die niedrige Inflationsrate lassen dies in der Euro-Schuldenkrise jedoch nicht zu. Deshalb scheinen Niedrigzinsen im Moment der einzige Hebel zu sein, mit dem die Schulden trag-fähiger gemacht werden können. Nun kommt es darauf an, dass die Eurostaaten die Chance auch ergreifen.

Since the second half of the 1990s, three major financial crises occurred, each with a significant involvement of rating agencies (RAs). Their rather poor performance palpably shows that they did not live up to their promises. RAs have proven to be fallible and overburdened. Given the task to which they devote themselves (evaluation of creditworthiness), this is somewhat inevitable. However, the same also holds true for their functional substitutes. Nonetheless, the importance of RAs has substantially increased over the decades. A decisive reason for this is their administered or “compulsory usage”, an immediate consequence from hardwiring their judgments in laws and regulations. This, notwithstanding the fact, that the rating market is systematically imperfect or incomplete. Only a very limited number of rating providers can exist. The RAmarket shows features of a public good: rating information is non- exclusive and non-rival, and economies of scale and network externalities exist. Thus, such a market structure suggests either a binding public regulatory framework. Or (autonomous) public institutions might provide (supplementary) ratings, and/or a regulated competition for mandatory external ratings could be initiated. Hence, the prevailing extensive reference to RAs' opinions in regulatory prescriptions is not justifiable. It should be largely eliminated.

Although banks are required to document their equity capital for loans, corporate bonds, and other receivables, they are currently exempted from the procedure when investing in government bonds: they enjoy an “equity capital privilege.” As part of the Basel III regulatory framework redraft, the privilege may be eliminated in order to disentangle the default risks between sovereigns and banks. The present study examines how much additional equity capital the banks of the euro area’s major nations would require if the equity capital privilege were eliminated. At nine billion euros, the estimates show the highest capital requirement for Italian banks. In comparison, French banks would only require additional capital of three billion euros and German banks would need just under two billion euros. Since eliminating the equity capital privilege would make the Italian state’s consolidation efforts more difficult, it is advisable to risk weight newly purchased government bonds only or allow for long transition phases.

This paper proposes a rating methodology that is based on a non-linear classification method, a support vector machine, and a non-parametric isotonic regression for mapping rating scores into probabilities of default. We also propose a four data set model validation and training procedure that is more appropriate for credit rating data commonly characterised with cyclicality and panel features. Tests on representative data covering fifteen years of quarterly accounts and default events for 10,000 US listed companies confirm superiority of non-linear PD estimation. Our methodology demonstrates the ability to identify companies of diverse credit quality from Aaa to Caa-C. 

This paper focuses on the identification of the causal relationship between central banks' supervisory guidance and individual bank stability. We propose and test the hypothesis that this causal relationship is mediated by the degree to which banks comply with their central bank's corporate governance recommendations. Specifically, we exploit the fact that there is considerable cross-country heterogeneity in providing supervisory guidance. Our recursive two-equation system is equivalent to an endogenous treatment effect model in which the treatment is the provision of supervisory guidance. We find that institutional factors, in particular the legal family of origin, political stability, contract enforcement and strength of investor protection promote provision of supervisory guidance. If a central bank has published supervisory guidance, local banks show better internal governance and higher stability.

Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change. Climate and sustainability-linked bonds can provide funding to African governments and corporations for projects that help to mitigate climate change, combat biodiversity loss, and foster sustainable development. However, less than 0.3% of the global environmental, social, governance (ESG) bond issuance volume is devoted to projects in Africa. Based on the entire universe of 107 African ESG bonds from 42 governmental and corporate issuers over the period 2010-2023, this paper establishes that ESG bonds provide benefits to both issuers and investors in terms of lower spreads and volatility. Our econometric results highlight that greenwashing is a valid concern for investors in African ESG bonds and certification of ESG bonds makes a difference vis-a-vis the self-labeling of green bonds. Non-certified ESG bonds do not offer similar benefits compared to certified ones. Green macro-financial policy and suitable regulation to prevent greenwashing can foster African ESG-bond markets.

This paper links banking system development to the colonial and legal history of African countries. Based on a sample of 40 African countries from 2000 to 2018, our empirical findings show a significant dependence of current financial institutions on the inherited legal origin and the colonization type. Findings also reveal that current financial legal institutions are not major determinants of banking system development, and that institutional development and governance quality are more important. A high share of government spending relative to GDP also positively affects banking system development in African countries.

This paper links banking systems development to the colonial and legal history of African countries. Specifically, we investigate the impact of differing legal traditions on the development of existing investor and creditor protection, and on African banking systems. Based on a sample of 40 African countries from 2000 to 2016, our empirical findings show a significant dependence of current financial institutions on the legal origin and the colonization type. Findings also reveal that current legal financial institutions are not the major determinants of banking system development, whereas institutional and regulatory quality significantly matter for banking system development in both common and civil law countries. Strong creditor rights reduce the cost of banking in African countries.

This paper sheds new light on how African countries’ legal systems and institutions influence central banks’ provision of supervisory guidance on corporate governance, and via this channel, affect governance and stability of local banks. Specifically, we exploit the fact that there is considerable cross-country heterogeneity in providing supervisory guidance. Our recursive two-equation system is equivalent to an endogenous treatment effect model in which the treatment is the provision of supervisory guidance. We find that institutional factors, in particular the legal family of origin, political stability, contract enforcement and strength of investor protection promote provision of supervisory guidance. If a central bank has published supervisory guidance local banks show better internal governance and higher stability.

This paper sheds new light on how African countries’ legal systems and institutions influence the governance and stability of their banks. We find that institutional factors, in particular the legal family of origin, political stability, contract enforcement and strength of investor protection promote central corporate governance reforms. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we also reveal that those reforms mediate the impact of institutions on banks. If countries have a corporate governance reform in place their banks show better internal governance and higher stability.

We assess whether compliance with Basel III’s main requirements, the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) and the risk-weighted Total Capital Ratio (TCR), matters for lending and stability of African banks. Banks with an NSFR or a TCR of at least the required minimum are defined as treatment group in the endogenous treatment estimations. Our results reveal that African banks complying with the capital threshold TCR lend more than banks from the less capitalized control group, while banks complying with the NSFR threshold lend less than their peers. A detailed analysis with sample splits reveals that complying with the capital threshold improves the Z-score and the ratio of non-performing loans (NPL ratio) only for those banks with stability levels above the median. The likelihood of African banks to comply with the Basel III thresholds is overall strongly dependent on the strengths of regulatory institutions in the home country and, in case of the capital ratio, also on the legal origin.

The Big Three credit rating agencies put Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain at a significant disadvantage during the European sovereign debt crisis. Their strong infl uence is likely due to the importance given to credit ratings by financial regulations. Both the EU’s credit rating directive and the Ratinggesetz of the German Bundestag assert that their objective is to markedly reduce this infl uence and allow for greater weight to be placed on fundamentals. They should pursue this objective vigorously.

According to the German federal government’s climate protection targets, there will be a continuous reduction of lignite-based electricity well before 2030. Simulations show that the currently authorized lignite mines in eastern Germany would not be fully depleted if the climate protection targets for 2030 were complied with. This makes planning for new mines or the expansion of existing ones superfluous. For the planning security of all the actors involved, policy makers should bindingly exclude permits for additional surface mines. In terms of the follow-up costs of lignite mining, the issue is whether or not the companies’ provisions are high enough and insolvency-proof. In this context, the new ownership structures in the eastern German lignite industry, after Vattenfall’s sale of its lignite division to Czech Energeticky a Prumyslovy Holding (EPH), have become a matter of importance. Simulations show that only under optimistic assumptions, the current provisions of 1.5 billion euros for the Lusatian lignite region are sufficient to cover recultivation costs. However, alternative scenarios show significant shortfalls. For this reason, policy makers should work toward independent, transparent cost estimates. Additional measures should be considered as required, such as the creation of a public sector fund to permanently protect the general public against being forced to take on the costs of recultivation. This is also animportant theme for the government’s new Commission on Growth, Structural Change, and Regional Development (Kommission Wachstum, Strukturwandel und Regionalentwicklung). Individual federal states also have key roles to play in the creation of a dependable roadmap for a coal phase-out. For example, the government of Brandenburg is now in the process of revising its energy strategy for 2030 (Energiestrategie 2030).

This paper explores the effect of a firm's reputation of being a green bond issuer on its financing costs. Using a sample of 73 listed Swedish real estate companies issuing in total about 1500 bonds over the period from 2011 till 2021, differencein- difference analyses and instrumental variable estimations are applied to identify the causal impact of frequent green vis-à-vis frequent non-green bond issuing on a firm's cost of capital and credit rating. The paper argues that it is repetitive issuance which lowers a firm's cost of capital, while the effects from first or one-time green bond issuance is the opposite. In line with the reputation capital hypothesis, issuing green bonds even lowers the firm's cost of equity capital, while issuing non-green bonds has no effect on the cost of equity capital.

This study explores the effect of frequent green-bond issuance on a firm's financing costs. Using a sample of listed Swedish real estate companies issuing a total of 1074 bonds over the period from 2011 to 2021, difference-in-differences analyses and instrumental variable estimations are applied to identify the causal impact of frequent green-bond vis-à-vis frequent non-green-bond issuance on a firm's cost of capital and credit rating. The paper argues that repetitive issuance lowers a firm's cost of capital, while the effects of first or one-time green-bond issuance are the opposite. In line with the reputation capital hypothesis, issuing green bonds even lowers the firm's cost of equity capital, while issuing non-green bonds does not affect the cost of equity.

Variable remuneration in credit institutions and investment firms can encourage excessive risk-taking behaviour. The present research investigates the impact of the Capital Requirement Directive and Regulation (CRD IV package) on this type of behaviour. The research shows that the Directive has had a significant effect on risk management. Deferral of variable pay, malus arrangements and a maximum ratio for the variable pay of risk-taking personnel are seen to be effective incentives even at this early stage. Competitive disadvantages with regard to attracting and retaining staff from unregulated sectors could not be verified. Problems have been found with regard to clawback clauses in the context of national employment law. Other problems concern the need for rules that are better adapted to the business scale. The rules work well in the case of big and significant institutions. For small and non-complex institutions, which are less engaged in risky activities and which pay out low amounts of variable remuneration, the relatively high implementation cost of deferral and pay-out in instrument are of concern. Member States have made wide use of exclusions. Regulating the extent, process and identification of such exclusions at the EU-level would further harmonise remuneration policies in the member states.

Gute Regulierung muss gewährleisten, dass Finanzmärkte von selbst wieder zur Stabilität zurückkehren können. Wurde das erreicht? Sind die Finanzmärkte zehn Jahre nach Beginn der Großen Finanzkrise robust und nachhaltig?In dem vorliegenden Beitrag werden die wichtigsten Lehren rekapituliert und die bis dato aufgesetzten Regulierungen bewertet. Die Bestandsaufnahme verdeutlicht, dass in den vergangenen Jahren zwar einige Fortschritte erzielt wurden, aber weiterhin starke Zweifel an der Robustheit der Finanzmärkte bestehen.Das nach der Lehman-Insolvenz 2008 ausgegebene Ziel der lückenlosen Regulierung aller Finanzmärkte, Produkte und Akteure steht nicht mehr an vorderer Stelle in der politischen Agenda. Die Regulierung ist in zentralen Bereichen, wie zum Beispiel den Eigenkapitalanforderungen, den Schattenbanken, dem Trennbankengesetz und der Finanztransaktionssteuer lückenhaft geblieben oder ist nicht zielgerecht.

The study aims to assess the distributional effects of taxing financial transactions including a focus on gender. It specifically investigates the impact of the low interest rate environment on tax revenues and distribution. The first part of the study is explorative, aiming to develop a concept for the assessment. This is because the role of low or even negative interest rates is not yet specifically considered in the context of FTT. In the second part, the challenge is to find appropriate data for European countries in order to assess distributional effects. The study also highlights the existing data gaps that prevent a long-term evaluation of FTT with regard to tax revenues, impact, and distributional consequences.

In 2013 the European Commission presented a draft for a directive to introduce the financial transaction tax among eleven member states. The tax targets financial institutes among which 85 percent of the trading occurs. However, households owning stocks, bonds and shares of funds are also directly affected if they deal with these instruments. Accurate data on the participation rates of households of different wealth classes on tax-relevant securities and turnover rates are necessary to determine the class-specific tax burden. Because of the lack of such data the affection of households belonging to different wealth classes can only be estimated. The estimations suggest that the more wealthy households own disproportionally often tax-relevant securities. A progressive impact insofar as the tax affects the upper wealth classes far more than the lower classes can be infered from this evidence. Therefore the tax could contribute to social sustainability.

The present study examines the effects of the introduction of a financial transaction tax along with enhanced cooperation across 11 European Union member states. In particular, based on the tax concept of the European Commission, the tax revenues for four participating countries, Germany, France, Italy, and Austria, are estimated.

In the course of the recent financial, economic and debt crisis significant regulatory efforts have been taken to make financial markets more resilient. Not all of these regulations are effective. For example, it is hard to imagine that the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) and the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) are applicable to the largest of European banks, because the required minimum coverage of losses by shareholders and debtors would most likely trigger a systemic crisis. Furthermore, the many roles of the ECB may lead to severe confl icts of interest. It should be also reconsidered whether the planned Capital Market Union’s focus on the securitisation of loans and the promotion of direct investments by savers in the capital market makes sense.