The paper investigates whether the financial crisis did affect risk perceptions, and, hence, change structural parameters. By decomposing credit spreads of US corporate bonds into the contributions by credit, equity, and liquidity risk factors as well as structural change, the relative...

We evaluate behaviour-based price discrimination from an antitrust perspective by focusing on an industry with inherited market dominance. Under horizontal differentiation behaviour-based pricing does not by itself lead to persistence of dominance unless the dominant firm is protected by...

This questionnaire survey of fund managers in the United States, Germany and Switzerland documents a distinctly positive influence of bonus payments on investment behaviour on both sides of the Atlantic. Higher bonus payments are significantly related to higher working effort but not to risk...

We analyse competition among banks when banks can use creditworthiness tests that generate (imperfect) information about borrowers. When banks can strategically adjust the test characteristics by investing resources in the screening technology, we show that credit markets are not easily...

We examine the bid-ask quotes offered by specialists (or dealers) who face indirect competition from other specialists who trade in related assets. In the context of a simple model where investors have mean variance preferences, we characterize the equilibrium bids and asks quoted by K...

This paper surveys the literature on the geography of financial activity in order to assess the role of financial centres. While there is widespread concern that rapid technological progess especially in communication and information technologies will ultimately lead to a delocalization of...

This note critically assesses the Basel reform process of capital regulation. It highlights the political nature of this process and argues that the absence of clearly spelled-out societal objectives has been detrimental in furthering stability and soundness of the banking systems in the run-up...

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers Inc. announced their filing for bankruptcy. The reaction of Lehman's competitors and market participants to this bankruptcy filing announcement provides a unique field experiment of how the insolvency spills over to other financial institutions and how...

We analyze the effect of loan sales on the intensity of costly screening. Loan sales strengthen screening incentives when screening primarily improves the bank’s ability to identify profitable loans and when banks retain most of those profitable loans. However, loan sales dampen screening...

We apply a reduced form representation of product market competition, facilitating an explicit characterization of the equilibrium investments in consumer-specific screening. The effects of market structure on screening incentives depend on the microstructure of the imperfect screening...