This thesis contains three empirical essays in banking. The empirical analyses focus on the role of information in banking. This will be done by analyzing the effectiveness of three types of signals that are sent by banks. The first signal is the CAMEL-type indicators that measure the soundness of the banks. The second signal is the price offered by banks in attracting deposits. The third signal is the amount of risk related information that banks disclose in their financial statements. This thesis aims to answer a few key questions that are relevant in banking. Firstly, it aims to find if CAMEL-type indicators are able to predict subsequent decisions by regulators to fail banks. This analysis will focus on the banks' liquidity ratio before and during crises in finding whether high liquidity holding and high reliance on external funding contribute towards the subsequent failure of the banks. Secondly, it aims to find if depositors discipline banks by focusing on depositors' reaction to the price signal from banks. Lastly, it aims to find if depositors react to the amount of risk-related information that banks disclose. The empirical issues are analyzed using the sample of financial institutions in five crisis led East Asian countries namely Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. Among the striking findings in Chapter 2 are that the effect of liquidity on the probability of bank failure varies before and during a crisis. The results show the vulnerabilities of banks to failure declines as a result of higher liquidity holding. The results also show that banks' probability of failure increases as a result of high reliance on external funding. Findings in Chapter 3 confirm the endogenous relationship between the price and quantity of deposits in the depositor discipline model. Panel data analysis shows that depositors' behavior in East Asia is driven by bank fundamentals and risk aversion activities and also by price movements. Dynamic panel data analysis is carried out to account for the lagged dependency of the deposits growth variable and endogeneity of the price mechanism in the depositor discipline model. The results show that depositors in East Asia do not demand a higher price for deposits. Analysis by subdividing the sample of banks into healthy and weak banks shows that the relationship between price and quantity is not non-linear. Healthy banks are not able to attract more deposits by raising price. Depositors do not discipline weak banks by demanding a higher return. Lack of responsiveness by depositors to price signals may be attributable to large the outflow of deposits that happened during the crisis period and regulations on interest rates. Analysis in Chapter 4 confirms that depositors are influenced by the content and also quantity of risk-related information disclosure. Panel data analysis shows that higher risk-related information disclosure enables banks to attract more funds only during the post-crisis period. Once the lagged dependency of the deposits growth variable and endogeneity of the price and disclosure mechanism is taken into account, estimation using dynamic panel data analysis shows that disclosure is a more effective signal in attracting deposits than price. These findings provide support to the proposition of the third pillar of the Basel II which aims to encourage market discipline by requiring banks to disclose more risk-related information. In line with the wake-up-call hypothesis, the findings show that depositors' responsiveness to the amount of information disclosure is higher during the post-crisis period. This study also finds that the effectiveness of disclosure signal varies according to the quality of banks. Depositors in East Asia reward good banks for disclosing more information but they do not discipline weak banks by demanding greater disclosure. Greater responsiveness of depositors to the disclosure signal of healthy banks compared to weak banks implies that disclosure is a more effective signal for healthy banks than for weak ones. Other issues analyzed in the thesis pertain to the relevance of the different type of econometric analysis used in carrying out the empirical analyses.

In this dissertation we investigate different aspects of capital regulations and their impact on the behavior of commercial banks. In chapter two, we foucs on the impact of capital regulations on risk-taking of commercial banks in developed and developoing countries separately and togahter. We find that such regulations indeed reduce the risk taking of commercial banks. At the same time, we examine the relationship between capital ratios and risk taking. In line with previous literature, we find that this ratio is negative also. Further examinations including the degree of liberalization and the level of finanicl development did not yield conclusive results. In chapter three, we examine the relationship between the capital regulations and total lending and total depositis. We do not find conclusive evidence in support of the ‘credit crunch' or the ‘ risk retrenchment' hypothesis. However, several important variables do show a tendency to change with capital ratios. As a result, changes in capital ratios in response to regulations do have important impact on bank lending and decision making. In chapter four, we study five South East Asian countries within the context of the crisis of 1996. First we test for the existence of depositor discipline in these countries and find that the sate of such discipline is very weak even after such a huge crisis. We also test the degree of risk taking in the banking industry in these countries. Evidence shows that perfect competition prevails in the bankins secotr. We also try to establist the link between "the index of depositor discipline" and "index of competition". But we don't find evidence in support of this.

La tesi si propone di rintracciare all’interno dell’ordinamento italiano una regola giuridica, quanto più generale possibile, suscettibile di applicazione al maggior numero di ipotesi in cui un atto giuridico determina l’alterazione di un ordine dato di priorità applicabile a pretese di azionisti e creditori di una società di capitali. Si rileva, infatti, che il diritto vivente delle garanzie reali possa spesso trovarsi in contrasto con un fondamentale principio di diritto dei contratti: quello di relatività dei loro effetti. Vengono, quindi, isolate, due classi di garanzie reali che, al contrario, risultano essere compatibili con il principio richiamato. Una più ampia regola viene, di seguito, proposta, basata sulla stessa logica che fonda l’istituto dei vantaggi compensativi, funzionale a regolare i fenomeni di alterazione di un ordine di priorità, a prescindere dalla natura della pretesa coinvolta. Essenzialmente, quest’ultima regola costituisce la trasposizione nel linguaggio e nel sistema giuridico del criterio di efficienza di Kaldor-Hicks. Dal lato dei diritti patrimoniali e nel prisma dei problemi “ordinali”, vengono individuate decisive somiglianze tra le pretese a titolo di debito e quelle a titolo di capitale di rischio, cosicché viene proposta l’applicazione di istituti classici del diritto azionario (ad es., il diritto di recesso) alla materia dei rapporti di credito. Definito l’ambito di applicazione dei diritti reali di garanzia e riconosciuta la maggior efficienza di strutture del passivo costruite prevalentemente sullo schema della subordinazione invece che su quello della preferenza, si propone di attuare un netto passaggio di sistema dal secondo schema al primo. Lo studio si conclude misurando i risultati ottenuti sugli analoghi fenomeni che si verificano nell’ambito della disciplina del sistema finanziario. / This thesis aims at finding in the Italian legal system a general rule able to provide a guidance for the modification of the order of priority of claims against limited liability corporations. It is argued that the applicable legal approach to security interests could often be in contrast with a basic principle of contract law: relativity. Therefore, firstly, two classes of security interests that proved to be coherent with the aforementioned principle are described. Secondly, a wider rule based on a logic of compensation is put forward and tested on some particular cases. Basically, this rule is a transposition into legal terms of the well-known Kaldor-Hicks criterion. On the economic rights side, similarities are founded between credit claims and equity claims about order issues, so that the compensation rule is thought as applicable, almost equivalently, to both types of claims. Application to a certain class of creditors of “organizational rules” (for example, right of withdrawal) typically provided by law for shareholders is also suggested. Defined the scope of application of security interests and considered the efficiency gains that are achievable by subordination structures instead of priority ones, it is proposed to pursue the same goal of modifying a given order of priority, through subordination agreements. Finally, these results are discussed taking into account some financial law topics.

Le cancer de la vessie est un cancer fréquent et extrêmement onéreux par patient puisque plusieurs patients subissent des récidives de cancer et ont recours parfois à des chirurgies complexes. Il est donc important de diagnostiquer efficacement ces cancers lors de la prise en charge initiale du patient. En effet, la procédure standard d’imagerie pour la détection du cancer est la cystoscopie de la vessie guidée par lumière blanche, toutefois cette méthode ne permet pas de bien distinguer les cellules qui sont propices à l’invasion musculaire des cellules de cancer de la vessie non infiltrant. Ce mémoire propose d’utiliser un nouvel immunoconjugué fluorescent ciblant la sous-unité alpha du récepteur de l’interleukine 5, un nouveau biomarqueur spécifique aux cellules du cancer de la vessie infiltrant, afin d’effectuer la cystoscopie de la vessie guidée par fluorescence. Pour ce faire, un protocole de conjugaison du fluorochrome cyanine-5 (Cy5) à un anticorps monoclonal a été développé. De plus, un protocole de conjugaison d’un peptide Cell Accumulator (ACCUM) sur cet anticorps fluorescent (A14-Cy5-ACCUM) a été optimisé. Ensuite, la capacité de cet immunoconjugué à marquer les cellules humaines de cancer de la vessie infiltrantes du muscle (MIBC), HT1376, a été testée. Par la suite, un nouveau modèle orthotpique murin de MIBC humain permettant la validation préclinique prochaine de l’A14-Cy5-ACCUM a été développé. Une banque de plasma et sérum sanguin, et d’urine de patients sains et atteints de cancer de la vessie a été compilé. Cette biobanque contient 111 échantillons de plasma sanguin et d’urine qui pourront être utilisé afin de tester l’hypothèse selon laquelle le niveau d’interleukine-5 sanguin pourrait être un facteur pronostique pour la progression du cancer de la vessie. Ce projet jette les bases pour l’évaluation potentielle de la cystoscopie guidée par fluorescence lors de la prise en charge initiale des patients atteints de cancer de la vessie afin d’améliorer la survie sans progression et la survie à long terme des patients atteints de MIBC. / Abstract: Bladder cancer is a frequent and extremely costly cancer when evaluated on a per-patient basis because of its high recurrence rate and patients undergoing complex medical procedures. It is of utmost importance to better identify the aggressiveness of this cancer at initial diagnosis. The standard procedure for bladder cancer detection is still white-light guided cystoscopy, which relies mostly on physicians experience in regard to identifying invasive malignancies. This memoir proposes the use of a new fluorescent immunoconjugate, targeting the alpha subunit of interleukin-5 receptor (IL-5R[apha]), a new biomarker specific to muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) cells for fluorescence-guided cystoscopy. To do so, a conjugation protocol to fluorescently label a monoclonal antibody with cyanine-5 fluorophores has been developped. Then, a conjugation protocol to attach Cell Accumulator (ACCUM) peptides to this fluorescent immunoconjugate (A14-Cy5-ACCUM) has been optimized. Moreover, the ability of A14-Cy5-ACCUM to stain MIBC cell line HT1376 has been tested. Most importantly, a novel orthotpic rat model of human MIBC for the future preclinical validation of fluorescence-guided cystoscopy in rat bladder has been developped. Finally, a new bladder cancer tissue repository at the CHUS has been established. This repository contains a total of 111 plasma and urine patient samples that will be helpful to evaluate if interleukin-5 blood levels could be used as a prognosis marker for bladder cancer progression. This project laid the basis for the potential evaluation of fluorescence-guided cystoscopy during initial diagnosis of bladder cancer patients to improve their disease-free and long-term survival.