We use project-level information for the largest regional economic development program in German history to study whether government subsidies to firms affect quantity and quality of bank lending. We combine recipient firms under the Improvement of Regional Economic Structures program (GRW) with...

We empirically investigate why wholesale funding is fragile by providing the first study of how individual banks borrow and lend in the euro unsecured and secured interbank market. Consistent with theories in which lenders enforce market discipline by monitoring counterparty credit risk and...

I study a model of market-liquidity provision by levered intermediaries that, besides operating trading desks, run deposit-taking franchises. Levered intermediaries’ heightened incentive to absorb risk helps to counteract liquidity-provision frictions that, in an unlevered economy, would lead...

This survey reviews the literature on the political economy of financial structure, broadly defined to include the size of capital markets and banking systems as well as the distribution of access to external finance across firms.The theoretical literature on the institutional basis for...

We study a politician's choice for state or private control of banks. The choice trades of lobbying contributions against social welfare, weighted by political accountability.Politicians facing few constraints prefer state control to maximize their rents. As state banks are less efficient, at...

While financial liberalization has in general favorable effects, reforms in countries with poor regulation is often followed by financial crises. We explain this variation as the outcome of lobbying interests capturing the reform process. Even after liberalization, market investors must rely on...

Under the new Capital Accord, banks choose between two different types of risk management systems, the standard or the internal rating based approach. The paper considers how a bank's preference for a risk management system is affected by the presence of supervision by bank regulators. The model...

In this paper, we develop a new capital adequacy buffer model (CABM) which is sensitive to dynamic economic circumstances. The model, which measures additional bank capital required to compensate for fluctuating credit risk, is a novel combination of the Merton structural model which measures...

We exploit the introduction of free banking laws in US states during the 1837-1863 period to examine the impact of removing barriers to bank entry on bank competition and economic growth. As governments were not concerned about systemic stability in this period, we are able to isolate the...