In perfectly competitive markets, prices aggregate inputs and outputs into a money metric that allows production plans to be ranked by their profitability. When informational asymmetries in competitive markets lead to adverse selection, prices in these markets assume an additional role that...

Nationally chartered banks will be allowed to branch across state lines beginning June 1, 1997. Whether they will depends on their assessment of the profitability of such a delivery system for their services and on their preferences regarding risk and return. The authors investigate the probable...

Commercial banks leverage their equity capital with demandable debt that participates in the economy's payments system. The distinctive nature of this debt generates an unusual degree of liquidity risk that can, at times, threaten the payments system. To reduce this threat, insurance protects...

The Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act, passed in September 1994 and effective June 1, 1997, will allow nationally chartered banks to branch across state lines. This act will remove impediments to interstate expansion and permit the consolidation of existing interstate...

Great strides have been made in the theory of bank technology in terms of explaining banks’ comparative advantage in producing informationally intensive assets and financial services and in diversifying or offsetting a variety of risks. Great strides have also been made in explaining sub-par...

This paper explores how to incorporate banks' capital structure and risk-taking into models of production. In doing so, the paper bridges the gulf between (1) the banking literature that studies moral hazard effects of bank regulation without considering the underlying microeconomics of...

With seemingly minor amendments to the standard techniques of measuring banking technology, we have uncovered important empirical phenomena that point to the crucial role played by financial capital in banking and financial intermediation. The authors employ a standard cost function, conditioned...

The authors argue for a shift in the focus of modeling production from the traditional assumptions of profit maximization and cost minimization to a more general assumption of managerial utility maximization that can incorporate risk incentives into the analysis of production and recover...

Bank consolidation is a global phenomenon that may enhance stakeholders’ value if managers do not sacrifice value to build empires. We find strong evidence of managerial entrenchment at U.S. bank holding companies that have higher levels of managerial ownership, better growth opportunities,...