Macroeconomic Environment and Banking Sector Soundness in CEE Countries.

The aim of our paper is to empirically investigate the impact of the changes in macroeconomic environment on the financial soundness of the banking sector (as measured by bank Z-score) in 11 Central and Eastern European countries, over the period 2000-2014. The results of our empirical study indicate that the financial soundness of the banking sector in our sample countries is heavily influenced by unemployment and inflation rates, foreign exchange rate, current account balance, public debt, and financial depth. Overall, our study underlines the crucial importance of ensuring a healthy and sound macroeconomic environment for the financial soundness of banks. Also, our research highlights that, out of all the macroeconomic factors analyzed, the dynamics of bank credit to the private sector is the main risk factor for the soundness of the banking sector in CEE countries, which calls for its rigorous monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]