o:37268 Expansionary monetary policy vs. bank concentration: The Eurozone & other European countries en Expansionary monetary policy combined with unconventional measures led to a decline in the profitability of U.S. and European banks. This paper studies whether such measures also affect the asset concentration in the European banking sector. The findings of this research add value to previous research, taking a step deeper into examining the consequences of expansionary monetary policy. It is found that reductions in the European central bank’s (ECB’s) key policy rate can predominantly explain the concentration growth in the eurozone countries. Furthermore, the ECB’s monetary policy had a more substantial influence on the growth of the concentration of banks outside the eurozone than those countries’ own monetary policies. Thus, the expansionary monetary policy poses specific challenges to financial stability in Europe. Keywords: Monetary policy regimes, Bank profitability, Bank concentration, Eurozone, VAR model 1552099 10.2298/PAN220303016J 1552101 1452-595X 2025-12-08T12:52:54.433Z 44 no 46 Željko Jović Univerzitet u Beogradu Ekonomski fakultet 0000-0002-1008-0732 application/pdf 975410 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:37268 no yes 16 70 92000001 11A03 Panoeconomicus 72 1 23 51 2025