Cooperation among savings and cooperative banks was criticized by the European Commission because of potentially anti-competitive effects. In an industrial economics model of banks taking deposits and giving loans we look at regional demarcation as one of such cooperative practices. There are...

Given the marked reduction in the number of banks in Germany during recent years, the study estimates competitive behavior in the German banking system by applying an empirical method developed by Panzar and Rosse (1987). By estimating the banks' reduced form revenue functions, the sums of their...

Following Diamond (1997) and Fecht (2004) we use a model in which financial market access of households restrains the efficiency of the liquidity insurance that banks' deposit contracts provide to households that are subject to idiosyncratic liquidity shocks. But in contrast to these approaches...

Banks continue to differ in many ways, for instance with respect to business models, growth strategies, or financial health. Neglecting these differences confuses inefficiency with heterogeneity while sub-sample estimation prohibits efficiency comparisons across different samples. We use a...

We model the impact of bank mergers on loan competition, reserve holdings and aggregate liquidity. A merger changes the distribution of liquidity shocks and creates an internal money market, leading to financial cost efficiencies and more precise estimates of liquidity needs. The merged banks...

Most observers have concluded that while money markets and government bond markets are rapidly integrating following the introduction of the common currency in the euro area, there is little evidence that a similar integration process is taking place for retail banking. Data on cross-border...

Seit Mitte der 90er Jahre liegt das deutsche Kreditzinsniveau über dem Durchschnitt der EWU. Worauf ist diese Entwicklung zurückzuführen? Sind die deutschen Banken weniger effizient? Liegt der Zinsunterschied an den hohen Refinanzierungskosten? Gibt es in Deutschland mehr Kreditausfälle,...

This paper analyzes loan pricing when there is multiple banking and borrower distress. Using a unique data set on SME lending collected from major German banks, we can instrument for effective coordination between lenders, carrying out a panel estimation. The analysis allows to distinguish...

We explore dynamic linkages between financial/banking sector openness, financial sector competition, and growth. We first develop an analytical model, highlighting links between long-run economic performance and services trade, through scale economies and market and cost structures in the...