This paper shows how to proceed to find the optimal capital structure and value with period-to-period constant and variable leverage, when the discount rate for tax shields is Ke, the cost of levered equity. Numerical procedures and recursive closed-form non-circular expressions for the...

Empirical literature and related legal practice using concentration as a proxy for competition measurement are prone to a fallacy of division, as concentration measures are appropriate for perfect competition and perfect collusion but not intermediate levels of competition. Extending the classic...

This paper employs stochastic frontier cost and profit models to estimate the efficiency of multibillion dollar European and U.S. banks. Empirical results suggest that both large European and U.S. banks have decreasing (increasing) cost (profit) returns to scale. Also, large banks in Europe and...

The turbulent decade of the 1980s completely restructured the financial system of the 1990s. Deregulation and rising competition led to record numbers of failures among depository institutions in the U.S., especially savings and loan associations. These failures have caused tremendous taxpayer...