Risk-based capital adequacy requirements are the main tool employed by government regulators to assure bank stability. This approach allows banks to choose from a number of alternative methods for calculating the required capital. Many systems for measuring risk differ significantly in cost,...

Using the industrial organization approach to the microeconomics of banking we model a large (Monti-Klein) bank which is risk neutral and faces credit uncertainty in its loan business. The impact of capital adequacy regulation and the effect of changes in risk on deposit and loan rates are...

Australia is in the early stages of introducing a system of self-provision for retirement through mandatory contributions to private superannuation funds. For most employees, the scheme will eventually replace, either fully or partially, the government age pension, currently relied upon by a...

Recent empirical work on financial structure and economic growth analyzes multicountry dataset in panel and/or cross-section frameworks and conclude that financial structure is irrelevant. We highlight their shortcomings and re-examine this issue utilizing a time series and a dynamic...

We investigate the optimal regulation of financial conglomerates which combine a bank and a non-bank financial institution. The conglomerate’s risk-taking incentives depend upon the level of market discipline it faces, which in turn is determined by the conglomerate’s liability...

Since the mid-1970s, the banking industry has been changing rapidly, but our analysis of its regulation has been lagging. Leaving aside the sterile discussion about the intrinsic instability of the industry, today its regulation aims at preventing systemi

The foreign property rule (FPR) requires that no more than 30% of the assets held in tax deferred retirement savings accounts be foreign property. The FPR is supposed to increase the value of the dollar and reduce its volatility and decrease the cost of capital and promote investment in Canada...

On April 1, 2002, the Japanese government lifted a blanket guarantee of all deposits and began limiting the coverage of time deposits. This paper uses this deposit insurance reform as a natural experiment to investigate the relationship between deposit insurance coverage and market discipline. I...

This paper studies the role of institutional investors (pension fund, insurance companies and investment companies) in the development of the financial sector and economic growth in OECD countries by employing a dynamic panel VAR. While pervious studies in this area have mainly focused on...

Consideration is given to what the big four South African banks have done since the late nineties to open up their lending facilities to the unbanked, taking cognisance of the trends internationally, finally leading to a conclusion as to the most appropriate strategy for the future. The banks'...