Slippery slopes of stress: ordered failure events in German banking

Outright bank failures without prior indication of financial instability are very rare. Supervisory authorities monitor banks constantly. Thus, they usually obtain early warning signals that precede ultimate failure and, in fact, banks can be regarded as troubled to varying degrees before outright closure. But to our knowledge virtually all studies that predict bank failures neglect the ordinal nature of bank distress. Exploiting the distress database of the Deutsche Bundesbank we distinguish four different distress events that banks experience. Only the worst entails a bank to exit the market. Weaker orders of distress are, first, compulsory notifications of the authorities about potential problems, second, corrective actions such as warnings and hearings and, third, actions by banking pillar's insurance schemes. Since the four categories of hazard functions are not proportional, we specify a generalized ordered logit model to estimate the respective probabilities of distress simultaneously. Our model estimates each set of probabilities with high accuracy and confirms, first, the necessity to account for different kinds of distress events and, second, the violation of the proportional odds assumption implicit in most limited dependent analyses of bank failure. --Bank,failure,distress,generalized ordered logit

Income diversification in the German banking industry

In the last few years it has been possible to observe decreasing interest margins for German universal banks. At the same time, institutions increasingly moved part of their business from interest to fee-earning activities. This study analyzes the determinants of non-interest income and its impact on financial performance and the risk profile of German banks between 1995 and 2007. We find empirical evidence that for all German universal banks risk-adjusted returns on equity and total assets are positively affected by higher fee income activities. Additionally, for commercial banks we show that a strong engagement in fee-generating activities goes along with higher risk. In order to analyze possible cross-subsidization effects between interest and fee business we also examine how banks' expansion in fee-based services has affected their interest margin. For savings and commercial banks we find that institutions with a strong focus on fee business charge lower interest margins when credit risk is controlled. --Income diversification,interest income,fee income,interest margin,two-stage least squares estimator

Monetary policy and bank distress: an integrated micro-macro approach

Evidence on the interdependency between monetary policy and the state of the banking system is scarce. We suggest an integrated micro-macro approach with two core virtues. First, we measure the probability of bank distress directly at the bank level. Second, we integrate a microeconomic hazard model for bank distress and a standard macroeconomic model. The advantage of this approach is to incorporate micro information, to allow for non-linearities and to permit general feedback effects between bank distress and the real economy. We base the analysis on German bank and macro data between 1995 and 2004. Our results confirm the existence of a relationship between monetary policy and bank distress. A monetary contraction increases the mean probability of distress. This effect disappears when neglecting micro effects, underlining the crucial importance of the former. Distress responses are economically most significant for weak distress events and at times when capitalization is low. --Stress testing,bank distress,monetary policy

Late cutaneous schistosomiasis representing an isolated skin manifestation of Schistosoma mansoni infection

Ectopic late cutaneous schistosomiasis is usually preceded or accompanied by visceral schistosomiasis infection. Our patient presented the very rare case of late cutaneous schistosomiasis as an isolated skin manifestation. Perigenital lesions occurred 1 year after contact with infested water. Identification of the few eggs remaining in the late lesion among the dense cellular infiltrate was difficult. Electron-microscopic studies clearly demonstrated the characteristic eggshell ultrastructure. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel

Tableaux and witnesses for the my--calculus

Symbolic temporal logic model checking is an automatic verification method. One of its main features is that a counterexample can be constructed when a temporal formula does not hold for the model. Most model checkers so far have restricted the type of formulae that can be checked and for which counterexamples can be constructed to fair CTL formulae. This paper shows how counterexamples and witnesses for the whole µ-Calculus can be constructed. The witness construction presented in this paper is polynomial in the model and the formula

Coalgebraic Semantics for Timed Processes

We give a coalgebraic formulation of timed processes and their operational semantics. We model time by a monoid called a “time domain”, and we model processes by “timed transition systems”, which amount to partial monoid actions of the time domain or, equivalently, coalgebras for an “evolution comonad ” generated by the time domain. All our examples of time domains satisfy a partial closure property, yielding a distributive law of a monad for total monoid actions over the evolution comonad, and hence a distributive law of the evolution comonad over a dual comonad for total monoid actions. We show that the induced coalgebras are exactly timed transition systems with delay operators. We then integrate our coalgebraic formulation of time qua timed transition systems into Turi and Plotkin’s formulation of structural operational semantics in terms of distributive laws. We combine timing with action via the more general study of the combination of two arbitrary sorts of behaviour whose operational semantics may interact. We give a modular account of the operational semantics for a combination induced by that of each of its components. Our study necessitates the investigation of products of comonads. In particular, we characterise when a monad lifts to the category of coalgebras for a product comonad, providing constructions with which one can readily calculate. Key words: time domains, timed transition systems, evolution comonads, delay operators, structural operational semantics, modularity, distributive laws

The time is now: the roles of apocalyptic thought in early Germanic literature

This study investigates the different purposes for which apocalyptic thought was employed in early Germanic texts. The main focus lies on Anglo-Saxon sources. Both prose texts and poetry are taken into consideration, and cross-references to tenth-century material from the Continent are made wherever appropriate. The first three chapters provide an investigation of the ways in which Church authorities used apocalyptic material for purposes of instilling an urge to repentance and/or conversion in their audiences. Chapter 1 discusses patristic and Anglo-Saxon responses to the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20 and finds a significant difference in the way the material was discussed by learned monastics and by populist preachers. Chapter 2 traces the Antichrist motif in Continental and Anglo-Saxon sources, with special regard to regional preferences in the treatment of the material. Chapter 3 broadens the view to consider Anglo-Saxon preaching in general. It discusses the different use of apocalyptic material by AElfric, Wulfstan, and the Blickling homilists, before approaching the prose and poetry found in the Vercelli Book and manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201.Chapter 4 discusses material in Old Norse since sources relating to late tenth- and early eleventh century Scandinavia offer a unique opportunity to hear the voices of the laity at whom apocalyptic material was directed. The chapter starts with an overview of the conversion of Norway and Iceland by King Óláfr Tryggvason and his missionaries before moving on to discuss skaldic verse from the conversion phase. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the curious mixture of pagan and Christian themes in the Eddie poem Vqluspá. Previous studies on the Judgement Day motif show either a regional focus (e.g. Anglo-Saxon England), limit themselves to a specific genre of texts (e.g. Old English poetry), or focus on the act of Judgement itself and/or discuss descriptions of the tortures of Hell or the joys of Paradise. In contrast to these, the present study's comparative and interdisciplinary approach provides a more detailed picture of early medieval ideas about the end of the world, and responses to them by the laity