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Journal Article
Banking antitrust: are the assumptions still valid?
In bank antitrust analyses, banking regulators rely on certain assumptions about products and services of banks, the markets in which they operate, competitors within those markets, and the effects of mergers or acquisitions on those markets. During the 1990s, financial innovation and changes in banking regulations changed the landscape in which banks compete. Consequently, the assumptions behind antitrust analyses have come into question. This article surveys recent studies relevant for assessing the validity of the assumptions that underlie banking antitrust. Most of the evidence supports ...
Journal Article
Bank failures and public policy
Journal Article
Could a CAMELS downgrade model improve off-site surveillance?
The Federal Reserve?s off-site surveillance system includes two econometric models that are collectively known as the System for Estimating Examination Ratings (SEER). One model, the SEER risk rank model, uses the latest financial statements to estimate the probability that each Fed-supervised bank will fail in the next two years. The other component, the SEER rating model, uses the latest financial statements to produce a ?shadow? CAMELS rating for each supervised bank. Banks identified as risky by either model receive closer supervisory scrutiny than other state-member banks.> Because many ...
Journal Article
Big banks in small places: are community banks being driven out of rural markets?
The shares of total U.S. banking assets and deposits held by the very largest banking organizations have increased markedly over the past 25 years, while the shares held by small ?community? banks have declined. Advances in information technology may have reduced the advantages of small scale, close proximity, and local ties that traditionally have given small, community-focused banks a competitive advantage in lending to small businesses and other ?informationally opaque? borrowers. This article examines trends in deposit shares of banks of different sizes in rural U.S. counties. If the ...
Working Paper
Effects of Federal Reserve services on the efficiency of the system for collecting checks in the United States: 1915--30
This paper investigates whether the services of the Federal Reserve System improved the efficiency of the system in the United States for collecting checks relative to the efficiency of the system used by banks just prior to the formation of the Federal Reserve. There are two types of evidence that the Fed's services improved efficiency. First, the Reserve Banks quickly became major processors of interregional checks, even though banks could have continued to use the prior payments arrangements. Second, declines in the ratios of cash to total assets of banks can be attributed to the ...
Conference Paper
Discussant comments on regulatory intervention
Journal Article
Will the removal of Regulation Q raise mortgage interest rates?