An important question in banking is how strict supervision affects bank lending and in turn local business activity. Forcing banks to recognize losses could choke off lending and amplify local economic woes, especially after financial crises. But stricter supervision could also lead to changes...

The paper examines whether international regulatory harmonization increases cross-border labor migration. To study this question, we analyze European Union (EU) initiatives that harmonized accounting and auditing standards. Regulatory harmonization should reduce economic mobility barriers,...

We examine how competition amongst lenders exacerbates risk taking during a boom using a simple proxy for the risk of a bank's loan portfolio--the average physical distance of borrowers from banks' branches. The evolution of lending distances is cyclical, lengthening considerably during an...