This paper analyzes the roles of corporate governance in bank defaults during the recent financial crisis. We investigate the impacts of bank ownership and management structures on the probability of default of US commercial banks. Our results suggest that defaults are strongly influenced by a...

This paper examines the role of relationship lending using a data set on small firm finance. The abilities to acquire private information over time about borrower quality and to use this information in designing debt contracts largely define the unique nature of commercial banking. Recently, a...

There have been numerous econometric studies of bank scale and scope economies, efficiency, mergers, and market structure and performance in U.S. banking. According to the authors, these studies have come to the following conclusions:<p> Scale: For the very smallest banks, there are scale economies...</p>

The authors use a specialized revenue function to estimate the revenue economies of scope and determine whether banks providing a broad mix of services are able to capitalize on the potential savings in transaction costs afforded their customers. Bank production costs and consumer consumption...

Large banking organizations in the U.S. hold significantly more equity capital than the minimum required by bank regulators. This capital cushion has built up during a period of unusual profitability for the banking system, leading some observers to argue that the capital merely reflects recent...