Under the new Basle Capital Accords, regulation takes the form of a contingency rule prescribing a certain level of bank capital contingent on the bank's risk taking behaviour in choosing its asset portfolio. In a simple dynamic model of banking with binding regulation we show that such Basle II...

In this paper we present a theoretic framework to analyse pricing structures in debit card schemes. Card-holders value debit cards only to the extent that these are accepted by retailers, while retailers in turn benefit from a widespread usage of cards. This points to the two-sided nature of the...

Output gaps for 11 EU countries, the US and Japan are constructed based on measures of potential output derived from a CES production function. This production function accommodates differences in substitution elasticities between countries. Indeed, the empirical evidence shows that real wage...

In the first part of this article we present a brief description of Dutch retail payment systems in terms of market structure and performance, usage of payment instruments, and corresponding tariff structures. Although it is con-cluded that the Dutch retail payment market as a whole showed...

This study considers the optimal regulation of a single bank that has private information on the intrinsic quality of its loan portfolio (adverse selection) and where the bank's choice of effort to improve this quality cannot be observed by the banking regulator (moral hazard). In designing...

In a dynamic framework banks compete for customers by setting lending conditions for the loans they supply, taking into account the capital adequacy requirements posed by the regulator. By easing its lending conditions a bank faces a tradeoff between attracting more demand for loans, thus making...

In a dynamic framework banks compete for customers by setting lending conditions for the loans they supply, taking into account the capital adequacy requirements posed by the regulator. By easing its lend- ing conditions a bank faces a tradeoff between attracting more demand for loans, thus...