Interest rates sometimes seem to respond to Federal Reserve policy actions in unexpected ways--for example, falling when the Fed " tightens" monetary policy or rising when the Fed "eases" policy. In this article, Michael R. Pakko and David C. Wheelock attempt to demystify such responses. They...

This paper examines the performance of the U.S.~commercial banking industry over 1984--2002. Rather than measuring performance relative to the unknown (and difficult-to-estimate) boundary of the production set, performance for a given bank is measured relative to {\it expected} maximum output...

This paper examines the relationship between the structure of banking markets and economic growth using a new dataset on manufacturing industry-level growth rates and banking market concentration for U.S. states during 1899-1929--a period when the manufacturing sector was expanding rapidly and...

This paper examines the relationship between the structure of banking markets and economic growth using a new dataset on manufacturing industry-level growth rates and banking market concentration for U.S. states during 1899-1929 - a period when the manufacturing sector was expanding rapidly and...