This paper analyses the evolution of competition in the Mexican banking system in the period 1993-2005, a period of deregulation, liberalization and consolidation of the sector. For this purpose we use two indicators of competition from the theory of industrial organization (the Lerner index and...

This paper analyses the determinants of interest margins of the banking firms.Our starting point is the methodology developed in the original study by Ho andSaunders (1981) and later extensions, but widened to take banks¿ operating costsexplicitly into account. In the developed model the...

In this paper we analyze firms' ability to tacitly collude on pricesin an infinitely repeated duopoly game of vertical productdifferentiation. We show that firms collude if and only if their discountfactor is high enough, i.e. if they value future profits sufficiently. We alsoshow that a lower...

This paper provides an empirical test of the Fisher effect and of the real interest parity. The objetive is to determinate the behavior of the ex-ante real interest that condicionate the intertemporal savings and investment decisions. The method used is the time series properties of the data,...

The aim of this paper is to determine whether there have been differences in the effectiveness of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom since Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) establishment. The analysis is based on the fulfilment...

In this paper, the Spanish fiscal policy sustainability is tested for the period 1964-1996. The theoretical framework used in this paper draws from Quintos (1995) where a distinction between weak and strong conditions for deficit sustainability is pointed out. From an empirical point of view,...

This paper examines the temporal relationship of Spanish public debt interest rates over the period from January 1991 to November 1994 between end-of-month observations of Treasury rates of different maturities, ranging from three months to ten years. Applying the cointegration theory, we find...

This study analyses the evolution of market power in the banking sectors of the European Union based on the estimation of Lerner indices. Using a panel of 18,810 observations of the banking industries of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom during the period 1992-99, the results...

This paper deals with the time evolution of stock market integration around the introductionof the euro. In particular we test whether the degree of integration between the main eurozonecountries increased after European monetary union. The contribution of the paper to the extantliterature is...

Financial integration in Europe should affect the competition between markets and intermediaries and generate a convergence of both interest rates and margins among the different countries. This paper analyses the evolution of the convergence in interest rates and the level of competition and...