This paper analyzes the causes and consequences of offshore financial centers (OFCs). Since OFCs are likely to be tax havens and money launderers, they encourage bad behavior in source countries. Nevertheless, OFCs may also have unintended positive consequences for their neighbors, since they...

How policymakers frame an economic problem inevitably restricts the range of policy solutions they entertain. It is important to prevent restrictions on the range of policy options being explored from undermining the quality of policy performance. This implies that outside economists should...

This Economic Letter shows that, in contrast to banks, larger credit unions, on average, have decidedly lower average costs and higher net incomes, as we might expect in the presence of important economies of scale. It further notes that these economies of scale put pressure on the credit union...

We offer and test two competing hypotheses for the consolidation trend in banking using U.S. banking industry data over the period 1982-2000. Under the efficiency hypothesis, technological progress improved the performance of large, multimarket firms relative to small, single-market firms,...

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