Empirical studies provide evidence that bank capital ratios exceed regulatory requirements. But why do banks maintain capital levels above regulatory requirements? We use data for more than 2,600 banks from 10 European countries to test recent theories suggesting that competition incentivizes...

We examine how debt priority structure affects bank funding costs and soundness. Leveraging an unexplored natural experiment that changes the priority of claims on banks' assets, we document asymmetric effects that are consistent with changes in monitoring intensity by various creditors...

We use data for more than 2,600 European banks to test whether increased competition causes banks to hold higher capital ratios. Employing panel data techniques, and distinguishing between the competitive conduct of small and large banks, we show that banks tend to hold higher capital ratios...