We model the impact of bank mergers on loan competition, banks' reserve holdings and aggregate liquidity. Banks compete in a differentiated loan market, hold reserves against liquidity shocks, and refinance in the interbank market. A merger creates an internal money market that induces financial...

This paper addresses a very European issue, the consolidation of securities trading and settlement infrastructures. In a two-country model, we analyze welfare implications of different types of consolidation. We find that horizontal integration of settlement systems is better than vertical...

In Electronic Payment Networks (EPNs) the No-Surcharge Rule (NSR) requires that merchants charge the same final good price regardless of the means of payment chosen by the customer. In this paper, we analyze a three-party model (consumers, merchants, and proprietary EPNs) to assess the impact of...

We quantify the impact that central bank refinancing o perations a nd f unding f acilities had at reducing the banking sector's intrinsic fragility in the euro area in 2014-2019. We do so by constructing, estimating and calibrating a micro-structural model of imperfect competition in the banking...

A growing body of literature indicates that competition increases bank soundness. Applying an industrial organization based approach to large data sets for European and U.S. banks, we offer new empirical evidence that efficiency plays a key role in the transmission from competition to soundness....

In this study we apply cluster analysis techniques, including a novel smoothing method, to detect some basic patterns and trends in the euro area banking sector in terms of the degree of homogeneity of countries. We find that in the period 1998-2004 the banking sectors in the euro area countries...

Banks play a special role as providers of informative signals about the quality and value of their borrowers. Such signals, however, may have a quality of their own as the banks' selection and monitoring abilities may differ. Using an event study methodology, we study the importance of the...

This paper analyzes the effects of bank mergers on bank-firm relationships. Using matched bank-firm level data, I find that mergers disrupt lending relationships, specially to small borrowers of target banks. However, I find significant positive effects of mergers for borrowers that continue the...

In this paper the probability of informed trading (PIN) model developed by Easley and O'Hara (1992) is applied to analyze the role and impact of heterogeneities in euro overnight unsecured market. The empirical assessment of the functioning of this market is based on the PIN which measures the...

This paper is the first that applies a new measure of competition, the Boone indicator, to the banking industry. This approach is able to measure competition of bank market segments, such as the loan market, whereas many well-known measures of competition can consider the entire banking market...