The paper surveys theories of the intertemporal allocation of funds through demand deposits and anonymous markets, first separately and then in an integrated model. It reviews some work on the role of market frictions and asset characteristics, and suggests that the interplay between these two...

The article re-examines the proposition, first formulated by Bryant (1980) and Diamond and Dybcvig ( 1983), that in a production economy with stochastic liquidity shocks to the household sector, banks serve to provide optimal intertemporal insurance to consumers. The paper argues that in order...

This paper examines the effects the planned merger between UBS and SBC would have on competition in the Swiss banking market. It is shown that the merger would lead to a dangerous level of concentration in certain submarkets such as the (economically important) market for credits to small and...

This is a survey of the literature on liquidity provision through banks. I first formulate the basic model underlying the modern literature on liquidity provision for households and then introduce the more recent literature on liquidity provision through banks and markets. Then I turn to...