We investigate how integration of bank ownership across states has affected economic volatility within states. In theory, bank integration could cause higher or lower volatility, depending on whether credit supply or credit demand shocks predominate. In fact, year-to-year fluctuations in a...

VAR analysis on a measure of bank lending standards collected by the Federal Reserve reveals that shocks to lending standards are significantly correlated with innovations in commercial loans of banks and in real output. Credit standards strongly dominate loan rates in explaining variation in...