The observed high levels of banks’ operating efficiency, profi ts and market values in the years before the financial crisis raise reasonable doubts about the information content of conventional performance measures for the accurate assessment of the efficiency of banking intermediation. In...

Using data on marginal interest rates of loan and deposit products by Spanish banks, we find that the level of interest rates on loans (deposits) across geographic markets decrease (increase) with the number of banks in each market, and that the level of interest rates on loans increases with...

The paper studies the evolution and determinants of banking integration across European countries, including New Member States, with attention to the impact that the Euro might have on that process. It is the first time that banking integration is being studied using the data on international...

In this paper we study the specialization of Spanish banks along two intertwined dimensions: size and ownership form. We find some interesting results at odds with the existing empirical literature. As commercial banks increase their size, they lend more to large borrowers but that is not the...

The paper sets an accounting and behavioral framework from which we derive a reduced form equation to test income smoothing and capital management practices through loan loss provisions (PLL) by Spanish banks. Spain offers a unique environment to perform those tests because there are very...

This paper contains estimates of physical and intangible (information technology, advertising and training) capital stock, together with capital, labor and externally provided input services, of Spanish commercial and saving banks in the period 1983 to 2003. Capital stocks are valued at...

This paper investigates the relationship between credit market competition and the availability of bank credit for firms of unobserved credit quality when firms pledge collateral to secure the loans. Loan data from the Spanish Credit Register shows that the average credit quality of borrowers...

Evidence is presented on the long and short run relationship between the money market interest rate and loan and deposit interest rates charged by individual Spanish banks between 1988 and 2003. The results indicate that such relationships have been determined by a mixture of adjustment costs...

This paper examines the effect of organizational distance (i.e. distance between the headquarters of the bank that grants a loan and the location of the borrower) on the use of collateral for business loans by Spanish banks on the basis of the recent lender based theory of collateral [Inderst...

Spanish banks had to set aside a countercyclical loan loss provision during the period 2000 2004. The amount of such provision as well as the allowance accumulated had to be disclosed by banks. The former creates a natural experiment to test whether banks smooth earnings to mislead investors and...