Competition, transmission and bank pricing policies: Evidence from Belgian loan and deposit markets

This paper analyses the pass-through of money market rates to retail interest rates in the Belgian banking market using disaggregate data and allowing for heterogeneous price setting behavior. We find that 1) corporate loans are priced more competitively than consumer loans, 2) pass-through is higher for products with longer maturities, 3) EMU did not increase price competition, 4) bank behavior is consistent with the presence of menu costs, and 5) existing empirical evidence may underestimate adjustment speed. Furthermore, heterogeneous price setting among banks is driven by market power as well as the bank lending channel.