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This paper analyses the determinants of net interest margin during the period 2008–2014 in the Euro Area. The starting point of the analysis is the premise that this variable is a gauge of financial institutions’ health and stability. In particular, since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, difficulties in achieving sustainable levels of profitability, mainly due to the vulnerable margins from the banks’ traditional activity, have significantly increased the fragility of the European banking system. Besides considering the main bank-level drivers affecting the net interest margin such as market power, capitalization, interest risk and the level of efficiency, we explicitly account for the effects of regulatory and institutional settings. The results show a persistence in the vulnerability of the banks’ sustainable profitability, even though this negative trend has been partly mitigated by the European Central Bank (ECB)’s recent monetary policies. The increase in non-traditional activities as well as the heterogeneous efficiency levels characterizing banking systems across the Euro Area, where operating costs remain generally high, have significantly contributed to the slowdown in bank margins from traditional activity. Finally, the regulatory environment is an important driver of the net interest margin, which remained lower in countries with higher capital requirements and greater supervisory power.

This article investigates the main determinants of households' repayment difficulties on mortgage loans in Italy. We contribute to the empirical literature on household financial vulnerability by assessing the joint impact of socio-demographic factors, loan characteristics and institutional variables on the likelihood of mortgage insolvency and on the intensity of arrears. Using data from the Italian component of the 2008 European Union-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey, we firstly identify which types of households are more vulnerable to unexpected adverse events that may trigger repayment difficulties. Specifically, households whose head is young, unemployed or immigrant show a higher probability of arrears and emerge as those suffering more from the adverse economic conditions connected to the crisis. Moreover, household repayment behaviour is affected by mortgage characteristics and, in particular, having modified contract terms significantly increases current arrears probability. Finally, regional institutional and credit market factors mainly impact on the conditional intensity of arrears. This evidence suggests that, although repayment difficulties mainly arise from a genuine inability to repay, households are less likely to pay on time when institutions are less effective at punishing default, confirming the existence of some strategic behaviour.

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