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The scope of this research is to investigate performing loan efficiency for fifty European banks during the period 2008–2017.

The study is structured as a two-stage analysis of performing loan efficiency and its driving factors. In the first stage of the proposed methodology “Data Envelopment Analysis” is used to estimate performing loan efficiency for each bank included in the sample. A bootstrap statistical procedure enhances the findings. In the second stage, the impact of other factors on the efficiency scores of loan performance using tobit regression is investigated.

The results are consistent with the findings of the individual banks' financial analyses. According to the findings of DEA implementation, the evaluated banks may enhance their cost efficiency by 39% on average. In addition, the results indicate that loan efficiency performance improves after 2015, coinciding with the business cycle's upward trend. The tobit regression is employed in the second stage to examine the influence of bank-related and macroeconomic factors on banks' loan management efficiency. According to the findings of the tobit regression, three factors, namely the capital adequacy ratio, GDP per capita and managerial inefficiency, have a substantial influence on performing loan efficiency.

This research investigates the effectiveness of European economic policy in protecting the European banking system from the consequences of the sovereign debt crisis in several euro area members. The results highlight the distance of the Eurozone from the level of the ‘optimal currency area’.

This study focuses on the banking systems evaluation in Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain (known as the PIIGS) during the financial and post-financial crisis period from 2009 to 2018.

A conditional robust nonparametric frontier analysis (order-m estimators) is used to measure banking efficiency combined with variables highlighting the effects of Non-Performing Loans. Next, a truncated regression is used to examine if institutional, macroeconomic, and financial variables affect bank performance differently. Unlike earlier studies, we use the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as an institutional variable that affects banking sector efficiency.

This research shows that the PIIGS crisis affects each bank/country differently due to their various efficiency levels. Most of the study variables — CPI, government debt to GDP ratio, inflation, bank size — significantly affect banking efficiency measures.

The contribution of this article to the relevant banking literature is two-fold. First, it analyses the efficiency of the PIIGS banking system from 2009 to 2018, focusing on NPLs. Second, this is the first empirical study to use probabilistic frontier analysis (order-m estimators) to evaluate PIIGS banking systems.

This paper attempts to investigate the effect of corruption on the real and accrual earnings management of target firms in the process of mergers and acquisitions.

The sample includes target firms from the European area that participate in mergers or acquisitions announced during 2010–2020. The preliminary empirical part estimates the level of earnings management during the period two years before the deal's announcement to identify whether the sample follows the manipulation behavior that the literature suggests for target firms. The primary empirical analysis focuses on the impact of corruption on real and accrual-based earnings management proxies, employing regression models and two alternative proxies for corruption. The existing literature points out that the combination of low levels of corruption and an integrated legal system reduces earnings manipulation.

The findings provide strong evidence for systematic downwards accounting manipulation practices, whereas the findings for real earnings management are not significant. The findings of the main empirical part show that corruption is positively associated with accrual-based manipulation and negatively related to real earnings management. In essence, in economies with a high level of transparency, managers adopt the manipulation of operating activities as a less detectable practice of earnings management instead of engaging in accounting procedures.

This study contributes to the literature highlighting the diversification of these firms' manipulation strategies according to the national level's corruption status.

The goal of this paper is twofold: to assess the influence of specific corporate and market features on automobiles and parts sector's profitability in Euro area and to identify this particular sector's optimum debt level.

For the paper's purposes, the authors applied a panel data analysis on an annual basis for the period 2005–2017.

There is a strong statistical significance of debt ratio, growth domestic product per capita growth, E.C.'s economic sentiment index (ESI), the European Central Bank key interest rate and the Euro area crisis on sector's profitability, while weak statistical significance appears to emerge for the firm's size. Moreover, the authors find average 14.4% profitability for the entire sector of the Euro area, without significant fluctuations among firms and/or during the examined time period. Another interesting finding of this study is that results are consistent with the theory of Modigliani Miller that financial leverage at a “low” level is beneficial for the firm, but beyond a turning point, it becomes counterproductive. This turning point for the automobiles and parts sector in Euro area has been computed at 47.3%.

The paper focuses on issues of profitability, capital structure and optimal debt ratio of an important sector of the economy, the automotive sector. As regards the Euro area automotive sector, it is a dynamic sector with a significant multiplier effect for the European economy as it is strongly correlated with other industrial sectors as chemicals, steel, textiles, information technology and so forth, having an outstanding multiplier effect on the economy.