We identify the effect of financial integration on international business cycle synchronization, by utilizing a confidential database on banks’ bilateral exposure and employing a country-pair panel instrumental variables approach. Countries that become more integrated over time have less...

We investigate the role of settlement in a dynamic model of a payment system where the ability of participants to perform certain welfare-improving transactions is subject to random and unobservable shocks. In the absence of settlement, the full information first-best allocation cannot be...

Banks supply payment services that underpin the smooth operation of the economy. To ensure an efficient payment system, it is important to maintain competition among payment service providers but data available to gauge the degree of competition are quite limited. We propose and implement a...