Economists devoted little attention to differences across banks in operational efficiency until about 15 years ago, when banks began to fail with increasing frequency. Some economists attributed the rising failure rate in part to intensified competitive pressures generated by deregulation and...

Are the losses recently incurred by New England’s banking industry symptomatic of chronic excess capacity that will depress the industry’s profitability even after the region’s economy recovers from its current recession? Or can the industry restore its profitability by ridding itself of...

New England lagged behind the national recovery in the mid 1970s but did better than average coming out of the 1982 recession. The region’s strong recovery after 1982 was the result of increased defense contracts, a high-tech export orientation, and the waning of the 1970s energy price shock....