Search Results
Conference Paper
Succeeding with size: maintaining growth in large banks
Journal Article
The economic performance of small banks, 1985-2000
Several trends in the financial industry over the past decade and a half have potentially threatened the competitiveness of small banks. Among these developments are the numerous mergers that increased the size and scope of large banks and the increased competition from mutual funds and other nonbank financial institutions. This article examines the economic performance of small banks during the 1985-2000 period by focusing on their ability to attract and profitably intermediate insured and uninsured deposits. It finds that the expansion of deposits and assets at small banks, when adjusted to ...
Journal Article
Top performing small banks: making money the old-fashioned way
Although the profitability of U.S. small banks shrank in the 1980s, two percent of these banks remained highly profitable by emphasizing basic banking, namely acquiring low-cost funds and making low-risk investments.
Discussion Paper
Do Big Banks Have Lower Operating Costs?
Despite recent financial reforms, there is still widespread concern that large banking firms remain “too big to fail.” As a solution, some reformers advocate capping the size of the largest banking firms. One consideration, however, is that while early literature found limited evidence for economies of scale, recent academic research has found evidence of scale economies in banking, even for the largest banking firms, implying that such caps could impose real costs on the economy. In our contribution to the volume on large and complex banks, we extend this line of research by studying the ...
Journal Article
Has the Relationship between Bank Size and Profitability Changed?
Kristen Regehr and Rajdeep Sengupta explore whether the relationship between bank size and profitability changed after the 2007?09 financial crisis.
Journal Article
Why do estimates of bank scale economies differ?
A number of public policy issues turn on whether or not there are scale economies in commercial banking. This paper examines why empirical tests in this area have yielded differing results. Sorting out the different methodological approaches enables us to develop general conclusions on the size and significance of scale economies in banking.
Working Paper
The Differential Impact of Bank Size on Systemic Risk
We examine whether financial stress at larger banks has a different impact on the real economy than financial stress at smaller banks. Our empirical results show that stress experienced by banks in the top 1 percent of the size distribution leads to a statistically significant and negative impact on the real economy. This impact increases with the size of the bank. The negative impact on quarterly real GDP growth caused by stress at banks in the top 0.15 percent of the size distribution is more than twice as large as the impact caused by stress at banks in the top 0.75 percent, and more than ...
Speech
Opening remarks at the Global Association of Risk Professionals forum
Opening remarks at the Global Association of Risk Professionals Forum, New York City.
Journal Article
Too big to fail: the pros and cons of breaking up big banks
Many people want to put size limits on ?too big to fail? banks, given their risks to the broader economy. Such limits, however, could raise the cost of providing banking services by preventing banks from exploiting economies of scale.