How do concentration and competition in the European banking sector affect lending relationships between small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and their banks? Recent empirical evidence suggests that concentration and competition capture different characteristics of banking systems. Using a...

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of the cross-country relationship between a direct measure of competitive conduct of financial institutions and banking system fragility. Using the Panzar and Rosse H-Statistic as a measure for competition in 38 countries during 1980-2003, we...