The 'sub-agentschap' of de Nederlandsche Bank did not figurate in the Bank Act 1863, but turned out to develop as a steppingstone between a correspondent and an agency of the Bank. This article considers the history of the office at Leyden, where between 1865 and 1969 a whole lifecycle of a...

In recent years, several European Union member states have modified the institutional design offinancial supervision. These reforms pose the question which considerations have led to the different models chosen in these countries. We analyse the considerations in the Netherlands leading to the...

This paper provides some history of deposit insurance and investor protection in the Netherlands against the background of the history of such protection in the European Union, EU-legislation and the recent changes in the design of financial supervision in the Netherlands. It discusses how...

In two-sided markets, one widely observes skewed pricing strategies, in which the price mark-up is much higher on one side of the market than the other. Using a simple model of two-sided markets, we show that, under constant elasticity of demand, skewed pricing is indeed pro?t maximizing. The...

This paper investigates the determinants of commercial banks' own internal capital targets and potential sensitivity of these levels to the business cycle . World-wide results make clear that banks' own risk is only slightly dependent on the business cycle. Banks tend to hold substantial capital...

The Diamond-Dybvig model provides an explanation for: (1) the existence of banks as a risk sharing agreement between depositors against unexpected liquidity needs, (2) bank runs as an act of collective irrationality by rational depositors, and (3) the introduction of deposit insurance as an...

Although cross-border bank lending has fallen sharply since the crisis, extending our bank ownership database from 1995-2009 up to 2013 shows only limited retrenchment in foreign bank presence. While banks from OECD countries reduced their foreign presence (but still represent 89% of foreign...

Do consumers change their payment behaviour after being exposed to a public campaign that encourages them to use their debit cards more often? We analyse the impact of such a campaign that started in 2007, using weekly debit card transaction data between 2005 and 2013. The overall results show...

A limited understanding of mortgage contracts and the risks involved may have contributed to the origination of the financial crisis. We have designed a special questionnaire to relate mortgage loan decisions to financial literacy and financial advice. Our findings show that homeowners seem well...

It is widely perceived that the supply of mortgages, especially since the extensive liberalization of the mortgage market of the 1980s, has had implications for the housing market in the Netherlands. In this paper we introduce a new method to estimate a credit condition index (CCI). The CCI...