Locating the function of bank supervision in the central bank has been a contentious issue, both domestically and internationally. Most discussions of the role of bank supervision in central banking have focused on crisis management and the responsibilities of the central bank as a lender of...

Foreign entry into domestic banking markets remains a contentious issue. Whether privatizing a state bank in Brazil or selling a failed bank in Japan, the proposed sale of a large domestic financial institution, possibly to a foreign acquirer, frequently results in a major controversy. Many...

Fueled by a high saving rate, active exporting firms, and a booming stock market, Japanese banks expanded aggressively worldwide during the 1980's. By 1988, all of the 10 largest banks in the world were Japanese, with a significant presence in Southeast Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the...

This article examines how consolidation, along with the use of credit-scoring models for lending, may be reflected in recent patterns of small business lending by banks. The authors find that the market for small business lending has been substantially influenced both by the wave of bank...

A wave of depository institution failures and dramatic losses to deposit insurance funds occurred in the 1980s and continued into the 1990s. In response, the Congress passed a series of bank regulatory acts intended to address the problems that led to the crisis and prevent its recurrence. The...

Bank consolidation has been going on for more than a decade, in part the result of legislative and regulatory changes and in part a reflection of the large number of banks that became financially troubled in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, the rapid consolidation of institutions still...

We examine the misallocation of credit in Japan associated with the perverse incentives faced by banks to provide additional credit to the weakest firms. Firms are more likely to receive additional bank credit if they are in poor financial condition, because troubled Japanese banks have an...