We examine trends in bank competition since the early 2000s. The Lerner index-arguably the most commonly used measure-shows evidence of a marked increase in market power in advanced economies, especially after the global financial crisis. But other frequently used indicators of banking sector...

This paper develops a model where large financial intermediaries subject to systemic runs internalize the effect of their leverage on aggregate risk, returns and asset prices. Near the steady-state, they restrict leverage to avoid the risk of a run which gives rise to an accelerator effect. For...

This paper revisits the competitive environment of the banking system in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and investigates the early impact of fintech development in the region thus far. Against the backdrop of high net interest margins (NIMs) and limited financial depth in the region,...

We examine how bank competition in the run-up to the 2007-2009 crisis affects banks' systemic risk during the crisis. We then investigate whether this effect is influenced by two key bank characteristics: securitization and bank capital. Using a sample of the largest listed banks from 15...

Using a new firm-level dataset on private and listed firms from 20 countries, we document five stylized facts on market power in global markets. First, competition has declined around the world, measured as a moderate increase in average firm markups during 2000- 2015. Second, the markup...

We examine the extent to which regulations of entry and credit access are related to competition using data on 28 manufacturing sectors across 64 countries. A robust finding is that bureaucratic and costly entry regulations tend to hamper competition, as proxied by the price-cost margin, in the...

Bank competition can induce excessive risk taking due to risk shifting. This paper tests this hypothesis using micro-level U.S. mortgage data by exploiting the exogenous variation in local house price volatility. The paper finds that, in response to high expected house price volatility, banks in...