In Germany a public discussion on the power of banks has been going on for decades now with the term power having at least two meanings. On the one hand, it denotes the power of banks to control public corporations through direct shareholdings or the exercise of proxy votes this is the power of...

This article develops a search-theoretic model of financial intermediation to study the efficiency condition of the banking sector. Competitive financial intermediation is determined by the search decisions of both households (to find adequate financial products) and banks (to attract depositors...

A number of studies have pointed to various mistakes that consumers might make in their consumption-saving and financial decisions. We utilize a unique market experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank to assess how systematic and costly such mistakes are in practice. The bank offered consumers a...

Market discipline for financial institutions can be imposed not only from the liability side, as has often been stressed in the literature on the use of subordinated debt, but also from the asset side. This will be particularly true if good lending opportunities are in short supply, so that...

Some have argued that recent increases in credit risk transfer are desirable because they improve the diversification of risk. Others have suggested that they may be undesirable if they increase the risk of financial crises. Using a model with banking and insurance sectors, we show that credit...

In Germany a public discussion on the "power of banks" has been going on for decades now with the term "power" having at least two meanings. On the one hand, it denotes the power of banks to control public corporations through direct shareholdings or the exercise of proxy votes – this is the...

A number of studies have pointed to various mistakes that consumers might make in their consumption-saving and financial decisions. We utilize a unique market experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank to assess how systematic and costly such mistakes are in practice. The bank offered consumers a...

Market discipline for financial institutions can be imposed not only from the liability side, as has often been stressed in the literature on the use of subordinated debt, but also from the asset side. This will be particularly true if good lending opportunities are in short supply, so that...

In the context of the financial crisis, many projects of bank levies have emerged. Yet, there is very little evidence on the incidence of bank taxes and, hence, it is not clear who will bear the burden of the new taxes. In this paper, we investigate the ability of banks to shift corporate income...

Some have argued that recent increases in credit risk transfer are desirable because they improve the diversification of risk. Others have suggested that they may be undesirable if they increase the risk of financial crises. Using a model with banking and insurance sectors, we show that credit...