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Working Paper
Regulating two-sided markets: an empirical investigation
We study the effect of government encouraged or mandated interchange fee ceilings on consumer and merchant adoption and usage of payment cards in an economy where card acceptance is far from complete. We believe that we are the first to use bank- level data to study the impact of interchange fee regulation. We find that consumer and merchant welfare improved because of increased consumer and merchant adoption leading to greater usage of payment cards. We also find that bank revenues increased when interchange fees were reduced although these results are critically dependent on merchant ...
Newsletter
What is the role of public authorities in retail payment systems?
On June 21?22, 2010, the Chicago Fed and the University of Granada co-sponsored a conference that brought together policymakers, academics and industry practitioners to discuss evolving retail payment systems and the role of public authorities, with several panels focusing on the Single Euro Payments Area.
Working Paper
Are covered bonds a substitute for mortgage-backed securities?
Covered bonds and mortgage-backed securities both allow mortgages to be financed with duration-matched bonds. Given the problems in the MBS market during the financial crisis, some suggest that covered bonds might be a substitute for MBS. We examine the use of covered bonds and MBS in the U.S. and Europe, finding that the two are used for different purposes. Covered bonds are used more to increase liquidity than are MBS. MBS are more often used in ways consistent with exploiting some kinds of agency problems.
Working Paper
A revenue-based frontier measure of banking competition
Measuring banking competition using the HHI, Lerner index, or H-statistic can give conflicting results. Borrowing from frontier analysis, the authors provide an alternative approach and apply it to Spain over 1992-2005. Controlling for differences in asset composition, productivity, scale economies, risk, and business cycle influences, they find no differences in competition between commercial and savings banks nor between large and small institutions, but the authors conclude that competition weakened after 2000. This appears related to strong loan demand where real loan-deposit rate spreads ...
Working Paper
Bank lending, financing constraints and SME investment
SME investment opportunities depend on the level of financing constraints that firms face. Earlier research has mainly focused on the controversial argument that cash flow-investment correlations increase with the level of these constraints. We focus on bank loans rather than cash flow. Our results show that investment is sensitive to bank loans for unconstrained firms but not for constrained firms, and trade credit predicts investment, but only for constrained firms. We also find that unconstrained firms use bank loans to finance trade credit provided to other firms. Our results illustrate ...
Conference Paper
Bank market power and SME financing constraints
Theoretical models of lending and industrial organization theory predict that firm access to credit depends critically on bank market structure. However, empirical studies offer mixed results. Some studies find that higher concentration is associated with higher credit availability consistent with the information hypothesis that less competitive banks have more incentive to invest in soft information. Other empirical studies, however, find support for the market power hypothesis that credit rationing is higher in less competitive bank markets. This study tests these two competing hypotheses ...
Conference Paper
Bank lending, financing constraints, SME investment