It is common in business analyses to invoke different efficiencies generated by scale. Growth is associated with declining average costs/sales and rising profit margins. Factors cited include the relatively fixed nature of some costs, increased bargaining power, and network effects. We...

We study the determinants of value creation within U.S. commercial banks. We focus on three theoretically-motivated drivers of bank value: screening and monitoring, "safe" deposit production, and synergies between deposit-taking and lending. To assess the relative contributions of each, we...

It is common in business analyses to invoke different efficiencies generated by scale and assume that costs grow at a slower rate than sales as organizations grow. Factors cited include the relatively fixed nature of many costs and increased bargaining power. Growth should thus be associated...

We study the determinants of value creation in the cross section of U.S. commercial banks. We develop novel measures of individual bank's productivities at collecting deposits and making loans. We relate these measures to bank market values and find that variation in deposit productivity...

We provide causal evidence of the deposits channel of monetary policy transmission in a newsetting, but show that bank entry can reduce or even reverse the relationship between depositmarket structure and monetary policy pass-through. We build a simple model of monetary policytransmission when...

We examine the effects of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, on mortgage origination volumes and foreclosure rates prior to the Great Recession. MERS was introduced in the late 1990s and significantly reduced the cost and time associated with secondary mortgage sales. Using...