"Under the traditional "competition-fragility" view, more bank competition erodes market power, decreases profit … margins, and results in reduced franchise value that encourages bank risk taking. Under the alternative "competition …-stability" view, more market power in the loan market may result in greater bank risk as the higher interest rates charged to loan …

"The relationships among competition in the financial sector, access of firms to external financing, and associated … economic growth are ambiguous in theory. Moreover, measuring competition in the financial sector can be complex. In this paper … Claessens and Laeven first estimate for 16 countries a measure of banking system competition based on industrial organization …

designing public policy for the banking sector. In particular, retail banking is found to be less sensitive to price competition … revenues, costs, and risks in each market segment, and conclude with policy implications. "--World Bank web site …

transparency and accountability in government and industry alike. "--World Bank web site …

"The authors formulate and test hypotheses about the role of bank ownership types-foreign, state-owned, and private … hypotheses with regard to foreign banks. These banks tend to serve as the main bank for transparent firms, and firms with foreign … across bank ownership types. The data are also consistent with the hypothesis that firms with state-owned main banks are …

obtain measures of bank level productivity by employing the techniques due to Levinsohn and Petrin (2003). They then relate … such measures to a set of bank characteristics. Their main results indicate that state-owned banks are less productive than … their private peers, and that privatization has increased productivity. "--World Bank web site …