This paper tests how competition in local U.S. banking markets affects the market structure of non-financial sectors … firms. The empirical evidence, however, strongly supports the idea that in markets with concentrated banking, potential … entrants face greater difficulty gaining access to credit than in markets where banking is more competitive …

relationship between the market structure of the banking industry and bank fragility, this paper studies the impact of bank … concentration, bank regulations, and national institutions on the likelihood of suffering a systemic banking crisis. Using data on … 70 countries from 1980 to 1997, we find that crises are less likely in economies with (i) more concentrated banking …