The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has concluded that competition in the market for SME loans from banks is suboptimal, and has, in fact, decreased in the past few years. Only a limited number of banks is active in this market, there are high barriers to entry, and...

This paper studies bank competition with borrower adverse selection. In the model, expected non-performing loan costs are high when credit is granted in booms, when risk free rates are low, or when competition is strong. I prove that full competition is suboptimal due to this last effect; that...

This paper documents a positive relation between bank competition and the penetration of bank accounts at the municipal level in Mexico. To account for potential biases in our regressions due to the endogeneity of market structure, we employ a two-stage estimation approach based on an...

Interest rate caps are widespread in consumer credit markets, yet there is limited evidence on its effects on market outcomes and welfare. Conceptually, the effects of interest rate caps are ambiguous and depend on a trade-off between consumer protection from banks' market power and reductions...

Reliable information on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is rare and costly for financial intermediaries. To compensate for this, relationship banking is often considered as the appropriate lending technique in the case of SMEs. In this paper we offer a theoretical model to analyze the...

This paper discusses an oligopoly where firms exert negative externalities upon each other. A theoretical model is developed for a market where these externalities are particularly relevant: the intra-day credit market, which is crucial for the operation of an efficient payments system. A...

Incorporating insights from the theory of vertical integration, I develop a new definition of commercial lending markets. Borrowers competing against each other across geo- graphical areas of bank influence limit the effect lack of bank competition can have on interest rates. Using the novel...

Using administrative data on deposits and loans of every Norwegian with every Norwegian bank, we show that an existing deposit account makes a household more likely to hold deposits at the same bank later despite better alternatives and more likely to borrow there. Consistent with this, banks...

This paper addresses the topic regarding the desirability of competition in banking industry. In a model where banks compete on both deposit and loan markets and where banks can use monitoring technology to control entrepreneurs' behavior, we investigate three questions: what are the effects of...

Empirical findings document a number of facts on small business finance and relationship lending, that lack hitherto a theoretical explanation. First, the impact of competition on relationship lending may be nonmonotonic and depends on the organizational structure of the banking market. Second,...