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Journal Article
Fluctuating fortunes and Hawaiian house prices
Real estate prices in a local market can be driven by an identifiable group of purchasers. In Hawaii, residents of both the U.S. mainland and Japan have been significant purchasers of homes. An analysis suggests that house prices in Hawaii were driven primarily by purchasers from the U.S. mainland for most of the 1975?2008 period. But, during Japan?s ?bubble economy? in the late 1980s and immediately thereafter, house prices in Hawaii were driven primarily by demand from Japan.
Conference Paper
Bank credit and economic activity
Journal Article
Economies of scale and continuing consolidation of credit unions
This Economic Letter shows that, in contrast to banks, larger credit unions, on average, have decidedly lower average costs and higher net incomes, as we might expect in the presence of important economies of scale. It further notes that these economies of scale put pressure on the credit union industry to continue consolidating into fewer, larger credit unions. It also describes how some recent legislation may have further added to the pressures on both the banking and credit union industries to consolidate.
Journal Article
Performance divergence of large and small credit unions
By various measures, larger credit unions have recently had stronger financial performance than smaller credit unions, indicating that these institutions face large and pervasive economies of scale. This Economic Letter uses data from the 1980-2004 period to show that this performance difference is a long-running state of affairs. Moreover, these data reveal increasing performance divergence over this period--that is, a widening in the gap in financial performance between large and small credit unions. Thus, it is not surprising that the number of smaller institutions has been shrinking, ...
Working Paper
Hidden cost reductions in bank mergers: accounting for more productive banks
Over the past decade, the banking industry has undergone rapid consolidation; indeed, on average, for the past three years there were more than two bank mergers every business day. Before the 1990s, most bank mergers involved banks with less than $1 billion in assets; more recently, even the very largest banks have merged with other banks and with nonbank financial firms. ; Globalization, technological advances, and regulatory retreat are often cited as factors that have stimulated and allowed more banks to merge. Mergers may reduce costs if they enable banks to close redundant branches or ...
Journal Article
A new view on cost savings in bank mergers
Journal Article
Credit union mergers: efficiencies and benefits
Mergers tend to improve credit union cost efficiency. When the acquirer is much larger than the target credit union, target members benefit in terms of lower loan rates and higher deposit rates, while acquirer members see little change. When merger partners are more equal in size, these benefits are shared more evenly. Over time, credit union mergers have shifted from, on average, only benefiting targets to also benefiting acquirers to some extent.
Journal Article
Credit union failures and insurance fund losses: 1971-2004
Over the past few decades, assets in the credit union industry have grown considerably and have grown relative to banking. As with banking, the credit union industry has experienced considerable structural change that, in part, involved failures. While the data on failures in the banking industry have been analyzed at length, the same has not been true for credit unions, so far. ; This Economic Letter presents newly produced data on losses in the federal insurance program for credit union shares and on the rates at which federally insured credit unions (FICUs) failed. (Shares in credit unions ...
Journal Article
OPEC, inflation, and monetary policy