The observed high levels of banks’ operating efficiency, profi ts and market values in the years before the financial crisis raise reasonable doubts about the information content of conventional performance measures for the accurate assessment of the efficiency of banking intermediation. In...

This paper explores the dynamics of price-cost mark-ups using firm-level data, paying particular attention to the crisis period 2008-2011. To this end, we apply the econometric framework developed by Klette (1999) to a comprehensive sample of Spanish non-financial corporations in order to...

This paper examines the contribution of investments in Information Technology (IT) and in advertising to the output and profits of Spanish banks, in the period 1983-2003. We find that the growth in the stock of IT capital explains one third of output growth of banks, and that an additional...

This paper examines the nature of competition in the Spanish banking industry during the years before and after Spain joined the European Monetary Union (EMU). The paper models competition in a product-differentiated market where banks choose from a list of price (interest rates of loans and...

This paper uses a well-established growth accounting framework to measure the contribution of ICT goods (considered as capital inputs) to output and labour productivity growth in the Spanish economy. We apply this framework to a sample of around 1300 Spanish firms per year over the period...

We have constructed a new database aimed at the study of the relation between firm demography and labour productivity, with a large number of Spanish firms from both industry and service sectors. This database allows us to analyze in detail the degree of dispersion and persistence of...

This paper analyses the evolution of total factor productivity growth and market power in Spain during the period 1983-1996. The data consists of a large firm level data set that encompasses all sectors of economic activity apart from financial institutions. The results show that traditional...

We examine the consequences of imposing higher capital requirements on banks (as under Basel III or, recently, in the case of large banks in the European context) for bank dynamics in complying with the new standards and for the long-term effects on bank lending rates and the demand for bank...

Since the seminal paper of Vasicek and Fong (1982), the term structures of interest rates have been fitted assuming that yields are cross-sectionally homoskedastic. We show that this assumption does not hold when there are differences in liquidity, even for bonds of the same issuer. Lower...

This paper examines the links between productivity and social welfare, with an application to the banking industry. It models spatial price competition between bank branches jointly with banks’ decisions on the opening or closing of branches based on profit expectations. The model predicts...