Consolidation has been a fact of life in the wholesale financial services sector, resulting in fundamental change in the financial architecture and public exposure to systemic risk. The underlying drivers include advances in transactions and information technologies, regulatory changes,...

The issue of optimum bank scope is central to many proposals for banking system reform. For example, a core component of the Dodd-Frank Act (2010) and regulatory proposals in the UK and the EU has been the concept of “ring-fencing” – i.e., restricting banks’ activities to their core...

In 1933 and 1956, the United States sharply limited the kinds of securities, commercial, and insurance activities banks could engage in. These regulations remain in place despite profound changes in the economic environment, in the structure of the national and international financial markets,...

This is the first exploratory field study of the U.S. inter-dealer OTC corporate bond market. We do this by analyzing the trades of a major bond dealer and through interviews with personnel at the trading desk of this dealer. We document the competitive structure of the market in terms of the...