This paper examines the extent to which bank market power alleviates or magnifies SME credit constraints using a large panel dataset of more than 118,000 SMEs across 20 European countries over the period 2005–2008. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine bank market power and SME...

Information sharing and collateral are both devices that help banks reduce the cost of adverse selection. We examine whether they are likely to be used as substitutes (information sharing reduces the need for collateral) or complements. We show that information sharing via a credit bureaus and...

Credit crunches, such as in the recent financial crisis, generally occur when banks are themselves funding constrained. We use this observation to repair the workhorse Stiglitz–Weiss model of credit rationing. Recent research has invalidated the distributional assumption on which that model is...

This paper rigorously investigates the determinants of bank competition for 146 countries over the sample period 1999–2011. The results employing both the Lerner index and the Boone indicator, reveal the distinctive characteristics of the competition drivers across different income groups of...

We study the relationship between bank competition and stability for 145 countries over the period 1997–2010. We use three measures of bank competition, namely the Boone indicator, the Lerner and the adjusted Lerner indices, and two econometric methods. Our results show that bank competition...

The Korean government consolidated several banks following the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–1998 to stabilize the financial market and to improve international competitiveness. This process has brought sound capital reserves, assets and profitability to the banking industry. However, due to...

In this study, we provide new evidence that the relationship between banking competition and financial stability varies depending on the characteristics of banks. By using a sample of two different types of banks, Korean commercial banks and mutual savings banks, we find that the non-linear...

This paper examines how banks respond to the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) according to their characteristics and, in particular, to their market power, using banking micro-data from Eurozone countries over the period from 1999 to 2011. Our results suggest that banks with...

A large theoretical literature shows that competition reduces banks' franchise values and induces them to take more risk. Recent research contradicts this result: When banks charge lower rates, their borrowers have an incentive to choose safer investments, so they will in turn be safer. However,...

Empirical research on the effect of bank competition on bank risk has so far produced very inconclusive results. In this paper we revisit this long-standing debate and propose a new empirical approach that is concentrated on the relationship between deposit market competition and bank risk. This...