Exploiting differential interstate branching deregulation across contiguous counties of adjacent states, we investigate …

removing barriers to bank entry on bank competition and economic growth. As governments were not concerned about systemic … stability in this period, we are able to isolate the effects of bank competition from those of state implicit guarantees. We … find that the introduction of free banking laws stimulated the creation of new banks and led to more bank failures. Our …

Does an increase in competition increase or decrease bank stability? I exploit how the state-specific process of … interstate banking deregulation lowered barriers to entry into urban banking markets and find that greater competition … significantly increases bank stability. This result is robust to the inclusion of additional fixed effects and other influences …