Under the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), introduced in 2014, systemically important euro area banks with combined assets of about 21,000 billion euros are directly supervised by the ECB. We examine from a static and a dynamic perspective how this fundamental shift to unified supervision...

We examine the coexistence of banks and financial markets, studying a credit market where the qualities of investment projects are not observable and the investment decisions of entrepreneurs are not contractible. Standard banks can alleviate moral-hazard problems by securing a portion of a...

We investigate, in a model of perfectly competitive banks and a lower bound on the deposit rate that these banks may offer, the idea that, as a result of financial innovation, capital adequacy requirements may become ineffective in preventing banks from investing in risky assets which are, from...

Rules designed to regulate capital markets and protect investors often have spillover effects, either negative or positive, on stakeholders other than investors. These stakeholders can include managers, employees, consumers, taxpayers, gatekeepers, vendors, and others. This raises a question as...

Credit card offers have grown increasingly complex over time. Using a straightforward measure of complexity — the total number of numeric figures that appear on a credit card direct mail offer's Schumer Box — this research studies changes in card offer complexity. The general structure and...

This paper addresses the desirability of competition in banking industry. In a model where banks compete on both deposit and loan markets and where banks can use monitoring technology to control entrepreneurs' behavior, we investigate three questions: what are the effects of competition on...

We consider the impact of mandatory information disclosure on bank safety in a spatial model of banking competition in which a bank’s probability of success depends on the quality of its risk measurement and management systems. Under Basel II capital requirements, this quality is either fully...

A model of loan rate competition with liquidity provision by banks is used to study bank mergers. Both loan rate competition and liquidity needs are seen to be "localised" phenomena. This allows for tracing down the effects of particular types of bank mergers. As such, we contrast the effects of...

This paper assesses the impact of competition on racial discrimination. The dismantling of inter- and intrastate bank restrictions by U.S. states from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s reduced financial market imperfections, lowered entry barriers facing nonfinancial firms, and boosted the rate of...