We test if unconventional monetary policy instruments influence the competitive conduct of banks. Between q2:2010 and q1:2012, the ECB absorbed e218 billion worth of government securities from five EMU countries under the Securities Markets Programme (SMP). Using detailed security holdings data...

The paper examines the impact of central bank regulatory policies on market power in Africa. The study presents a representative sample of 52 African economies over the period 2006-2020. The study shows that the individual regulatory policies of the central bank (i.e. monetary and...

Prudential regulation of banks is multi-layered: policy changes by home-country authorities affect banks' global operations across many jurisdictions; changes by host-country authorities shape banks' operations in the host jurisdiction regardless of the nationality of the parent bank. Which...

The study seeks to provide a critique of the theoretical framework of economic governance as it relates to the financial sector in Zimbabwe and identify institutions in the financial sector and explain their roles. It also seeks to unpack the concepts related to the banking or the financial...

This study examines the effect of regulatory independence of the central bank in shaping the impact of electoral cycles on bank lending behaviour in Africa. It employs the dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (SGMM) Two-Step estimator for a panel dataset of 54 African countries over the...

Recent experience from Europe and Japan shows that commercial banks generally pass negative short-term policy rates on to wholesale depositors, such as insurances and pension funds. Yet, they refrain from charging negative rates to ordinary retail customers. This paper asks whether the existing...

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...

Recent experience from Europe and Japan shows that commercial banks generally pass negative short-term policy rates on to wholesale depositors, such as insurances and pension funds. Yet, they refrain from charging negative rates to ordinary retail customers. This paper asks whether the existing...

We quantify the impact that central bank refinancing o perations a nd f unding f acilities had at reducing the banking sector's intrinsic fragility in the euro area in 2014-2019. We do so by constructing, estimating and calibrating a micro-structural model of imperfect competition in the banking...

Kenya is about to embark on an important reform to expand banking to millions of poor households by enabling third-party retail agents as a low-cost distribution alternative to branches. However, this initiative risks being undermined by the mobile network operator (MNO) Safaricom, which...