This survey reviews how a recent political economy literature helps explaining variation in governance, competition, funding composition and access to credit. Evolution in political institutions can account for financial evolution, and appear critical to explain rapid changes in financial...

This paper deals with the relation between excessive risk taking and capital structure in banks. Examining a quarterly dataset of U.S. banks between 1993 and 2010, we find that equity is valued higher when more risky portfolios are chosen when leverage is high, and that more risk taking has a...

We study the effect of going-concern contingent capital on bank risk choice. The possibility of debt for equity conversion forces deleveraging in highly levered states, when risk incentives are worse. The additional equity reduces endogenous risk shifting by diluting returns in high states. An...

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (known as the GATS) is an important new element in the international framework that affects the regulation of every WTO Member's financial sector. However, except for a limited number of country-specific case studies, no attempt has been made to compare...

This paper empirically examines the role of soft information in the competitive interaction between relationship and transaction banks. Soft information can be interpreted as a private signal about the quality of a firm that is observable to a relationship bank, but not to a transaction bank. We...

This paper tests whether an increase in insured deposits causes banks to become more risky. We use variation introduced by the U.S. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in October 2008, which increased the deposit insurance coverage from $100,000 to $250,000 per depositor and bank. For some...

This paper analyzes the evolving architecture for the prudential supervision of banks in the euro area. It is primarily concerned with the likely effectiveness of the SSM as a regime that intends to bolster financial stability in the steady state. By using insights from the political economy of...

This paper proposes a new regulatory approach that implements capital requirements contingent on managerial compensation. We argue that excessive risk taking in the financial sector originates from the shareholder moral hazard created by government guarantees rather than from corporate...

We exploit the introduction of free banking laws in US states during the 1837-1863 period to examine the impact of removing barriers to bank entry on bank competition and economic growth. As governments were not concerned about systemic stability in this period, we are able to isolate the...

The industrial organization approach to banking is extended to analyze the effects of interbank market activity and regulatory liquidity requirements on bank behavior. A multi-stage decision situation allows for considering the interaction between credit risk and liquidity risk of banks. This...