Advertising and pricing at multiple-output firms: evidence from U.S. thrift institutions

We derive five hypotheses regarding market competition, price, and advertising from a theoretical model of a profit maximizing depository institution, and test these conjectures in a simultaneous system of deposit interest rates and advertising expenditures for a data panel of 1,867 thrift institutions that offer 13 different deposit products in 666 local markets in the U.S. between 1994 and 2000. We find some support for each of our hypotheses – branding, information, Dorfman-Steiner, structure-advertising, and structure-price – with the strength of the results often depending on the attributes of the deposit products or the characteristics of the thrifts.Advertising ; Thrift institutions

Bank imputed interest rates: unbiased estimates of offered rates?

We examine whether “imputed” interest rates obtained from bank financial statements are unbiased estimates of “offered” interest rates that the same banks report in surveys. We find evidence of a statistically significant amount of bias. However, the statistical bias that we document does not appear to be economically significant. When used as dependent variables in regression analysis, imputed rates and offered rates lead to the same policy conclusions. Our work has important methodological implications for empirical research that examines the product market competition among depository institutions.Interest rates

Privatization in Turkey. an assesment.

M.S. - Master of Scienc

The Role of Advertising in Commercial Banking

I use a new Call Reports data item to revisit the role of advertising in US commercial banking. I examine how banks' advertising varies with the deposit market structure and whether bank profitability is influenced by advertising. My analysis addresses the endogeneity of market structure and advertising variables using instrumental variables. I find that banks advertise more with increasing market concentration, whereas banks with larger market shares and size advertise less. I also find that advertising has a positive and economically significant impact on bank profitability. These results suggest that advertising is an important aspect of bank competition.depository institutions; market structure; non-price competition

Bank Imputed Interest Rates: Unbiased Estimates of Offered Rates?

We examine whether “imputed” interest rates obtained from bank financial statements are unbiased estimates of “offered” interest rates that the same banks report in surveys. We find evidence of a statistically significant amount of bias. However, the statistical bias that we document does not appear to be economically significant. When used as dependent variables in regression analysis, imputed rates and offered rates lead to the same policy conclusions. Our work has important methodological implications for empirical research that examines the product market competition among depository institutions.deposit rates; imputed prices; product market; transaction prices

Advertising and Pricing at Multiple-Output Firms: Evidence from US Thrift Institutions

We derive five hypotheses regarding market competition, price, and advertising from a theoretical model of a profit maximizing depository institution, and test these conjectures in a simultaneous system of deposit interest rates and advertising expenditures for a data panel of 1,867 thrift institutions that offer 13 different deposit products in 666 local markets in the US between 1994 and 2000. We find some support for each of our hypotheses – branding, information, Dorfman-Steiner, structure-advertising, and structure-price – with the strength of the results often depending on the attributes of the deposit products or the characteristics of the thrifts.advertising; depository institutions; structure-performance

Performance Gender-Gap: Does Competition Matter?

Using data from a natural experiment with high payoffs in education, we examine whether the competitive nature of tournament structure explains the performance gender-gap. We find that performance is statistically lower for women, the variance of performance is higher for men, and the tails of the performance distribution are significantly fatter for men. For the same participants in non-competitive settings with similar academic content, the performance of women first-order-stochastically dominates that of men. We reject differences in risk aversion and ability as reasons for performance gender-gap.gender-gap; relative-performance evaluation; tournament