This paper examines the performance of 515 banks in 16 transition economies for the years 1994 - 99 based on their public financial accounts. We first examine lending behaviour and probability distribution of bank profitability to determine whether these banks exhibit behaviour and performance...

Extant studies treat the impact of entry on concentration and market structure mechanically; with some going further to naively identify fall in concentration as the cause of competition. It is the intention of this paper to critically examine these contentions by studying trends and...

Over the years since airline deregulation five of the remaining U.S. legacy carriers lost money on mergers that cost them a total of $29.6 billion. The combined market cap of these carriers at the end of 2007 was $15.5 billion. In other words, their return on merger investments was -48%. Why?...

This paper considers the aggregate performance of the banking industry, applying a modified and extended Bennet (1920) dynamic decomposition of bank return on equity as an illustration. The aggregate performance of any industry depends on the underlying microeconomic dynamics within that...

A well developed financial system enhances competition in the industrial sector by allowing easier entry. The impact varies across industries, however. For some, small changes in financial development quickly induce entry and dissipate incumbents' rents, generating strong incentives to oppose...

In November 1991, federal lawmakers threatened to place a binding cap on credit card interest rates. I find that credit card rates declined following the regulatory threat, more so for larger and more politically visible credit card issuers. A set of stock market event studies reveals that...

We test whether a non-binding price ceiling may serve as a focal point for tacit collusion, using data from the credit card market during the 1980s. In our sample, most credit card issuers face a state-level interest rate ceiling, and well over half match their ceiling. We develop an empirical...

We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model of capital accumulation where credit is intermediated by banks operating in a Cournot oligopoly. The number of banks affects capital accumulation through two channels. First, it affects the quantity of credit available to entrepreneurs. Second, it...

We present a model where producers of complementary goods have the option to practice mixed bundling. In the first stage of a two-stage game, firms choose between a mixed bundling and a non- bundling strategy. In the second stage, firms choose prices. We show that mixed bundling is a dominant...

The threat of entry is an important factor in the evaluation of the potential competitive effects of proposed mergers and acquisitions. In the evaluation of proposed bank mergers, a high probability of entry, or strong potential competition, is often found to mitigate the potential...