This paper tests market power in the banking industry. Price-cost margins predicted by different oligopoly models are calculated using discrete-choice demand estimates of own-price and cross-price elasticities. These predicted price-cost margins are then compared with price-cost margins computed...

This paper tests for the existence of market power in banking, using data on demand deposit rates of households and corresponding market rates in five euro area countries. An implicit measure for market power is based on a partial adjustment model that also allows for an asymmetric response of...

We address how lending market competition, measured by banks’ bargaining power, affects the agency costs of debt finance. We show that the threshold for obtaining loan finance is independent of the relative bargaining power of the financier. Moreover, intensified lending market competition...

The study looks at the implications of product market competition and investment for price setting, wage bargaining and thereby for equilibrium unemployment in an economy with product and labour market imperfections. We show that intensified product market competition will reduce equilibrium...

We propose a flexible prices model where endogenous market structures and search and matching frictions in the labour market interact endogenously. The interplay between firms’ endogenous entry, strategic interactions among producers and labour market frictions represents a strong...

We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A key feature is the selection between high- and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the parameters of the model using detailed US...

Recently, banking literature has had a quest for appropriate pricing of bank loans under the new Basel II rules and has been in pursuit of possible outcomes for undertaking such credit risk. In this paper, we propose a simplified formula to price bank’s corporate loans, aiming at making bank...

We study the long standing issue of whether markets can supply banks with sufficient liquidity or whether markets should be complemented with a lender of last resort (LOLR). For this purpose, we develop an extended version of the recent model of Holmström and Tirole (1998) on the supply of...

China is reforming its banking system, partially privatizing and permitting minority foreign ownership of three of the dominant ‘big four’ state-owned banks. This paper seeks to help predict the effects of this change by analysing the efficiency of virtually all Chinese banks in the years...

Transparency regulation aims at reducing financial fragility by strengthening market discipline. There are however two elementary properties of banking that may render such regulation inefficient at best and detrimental at worst. First, an extensive financial safety net may eliminate the...