This paper explores how banks adjust their risk-based capital ratios and asset allocations following an exogenous shock to their asset quality caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We find that independent banks based in the disaster areas increase their risk-based capital ratios after the...

Exploiting differential interstate branching deregulation across contiguous counties of adjacent states, we investigate the effect of entry threat on incumbent banks' loan loss provisions. Incumbents exposed to entry threat have offsetting incentives; lower provisions make their loan...

Studies by the Reserve Bank undertaken from 2000 to 2002 concluded that the structure of pricing in the Australian card payments system was encouraging inefficient use of credit cards relative to EFTPOS. From 2003, therefore, the Bank progressively introduced reforms to address this issue:...

Credit card transactions cost American merchants six times as much as cash transactions. Why, then, do consumers pay the same price for purchases, regardless of the means of payment?The answer lies in a set of credit card network rules known as merchant restraints. Merchant restraints forbid...