Instead, thriving banks were slightly more concentrated in one- to four-family mortgage loans held in portfolio, as well as consumer loans. Despite these overall balance sheet findings, the researchers also noted the wide diversity of business models that they found among the thriving banks.
Over the past few years, despite tangible progress in terms of overall employment growth and activity rates, a slowdown in the rise in hourly productivity in the euro area has been the main cause of the gap in economic growth between the euro area and the other major economy in the industrially advanced world, namely the United States.