October 2000 - Financial liberalization reduces imperfections in financial markets by reducing the agency costs of financial leverage. Small firms gain most from liberalization, because the favoritism of preferential credit directed to large firms tends to disappear under liberalization. Laeven...

The proposed SDN documents the evolution of bank size and activities over the past 20 years. It discusses whether this evolution can be explained by economies of scale or “too big to fail” subsidies. The paper then presents evidence on the extent to which bank size and market-based...