Competition and stability: what's special about banking?

This paper examines the relationship between competition policies and policies to preserve stability in the banking sector. Market structures and the relative importance of the three classical antitrust areas for banking are discussed, showing the predominance of merger review considerations for loan and deposit markets as well as the relevance of cartel considerations for payment systems. A core part of the paper is an analysis of the relative roles of competition and supervisory authorities in the review of bank mergers for the G-7 industrialised countries. A wide variety of approaches emerges, with some countries giving a stronger role to prudential supervisors than to competition authorities and other countries doing it the other way round. In search for explanations for this diversity the theoretical and empirical literature on the competition-stability nexus in banking is surveyed. It turns out that the widely accepted trade-off between competition and stability does not generally hold. JEL Classification: G21, G28, G34, K21, L4antitrust policies, Bank competition, banking supervision, financial stability, mergers & acquisitions

The Euro and International Capital Markets

currency; economic integration; EMU; Euro; European Central Bank; political economy

The economic impact of merger control legislation

Based on a unique dataset of legislative changes in industrial countries, we identify events that strengthen the competition control of mergers and acquisitions, analyze their impact on banks and non-financial firms and explain the different reactions observed with specific regulatory characteristics of the banking sector. Covering nineteen countries for the period 1987 to 2004, we find that more competition-oriented merger control increases the stock prices of banks and decreases the stock prices of non-financial firms. Bank targets become more profitable and larger, while those of non-financial firms remain mostly unaffected. A major determinant of the positive bank returns is the degree of opaqueness that characterizes the institutional setup for supervisory bank merger reviews. The legal design of the supervisory control of bank mergers may therefore have important implications for real activity

Systemic risk: A survey

This paper develops a broad concept of systemic risk, the basic economic concept for the understanding of financial crises. It is claimed that any such concept must integrate systemic events in banking and financial markets as well as in the related payment and settlement systems. At the heart of systemic risk are contagion effects, various forms of external effects. The concept also includes simultaneous financial instabilities following aggregate shocks. The quantitative literature on systemic risk, which was evolving swiftly in the last couple of years, is surveyed in the light of this concept. Various rigorous models of bank and payment system contagion have now been developed, although a general theoretical paradigm is still missing. Direct econometric tests of bank contagion effects seem to be mainly limited to the United States. Empirical studies of systemic risk in foreign exchange and security settlement systems appear to be non-existent. Moreover, the literature surveyed reflects the general difficulty to develop empirical tests that can make a clear distinction between contagion in the proper sense and joint crises caused by common shocks, rational revisions of depositor or investor expectations when information is asymmetric ('information-based' contagion) and 'pure' contagion as well as between 'efficient' and 'inefficient' systemic events. JEL Classification: G21, G29, G12, E49banking crises, Contagion, currency crises, financial markets, financial stability, payment and settlement systems, systemic risk

Do Reuters spreads reflect currencies' differences in global trading activity?

A new estimate of the long-run impact of trading activity on bid-ask spreads in the foreign exchange markets is realized with a short panel containing around-the-clock Reuters quotes and global transaction volumes. Individual and time effects are accounted for in an unbalanced random effects model. In accordance with liquidity effect explanations the volume parameter is found to have a negative sign, although not at a high level of significance. The volatility parameter is positive and strongly significant. While the structural parameters of the model appear to be stable over time, the residuals are groupwise heteroscedastic. The higher standard error in 1992 might reflect the dynamic developments in the world forex market since 1989. Reuters quoting (tick) frequency is also tested as a measure of trading activity in spread estimations. The results turn out to be very similar to those with trading volumes, in particular when an instrumental variable estimator is employed to account for measurement errors or possible endogeneity problems

Mean Variance Optimization of Non-Linear Systems and Worst-case Analysis

We model the impact of bank mergers on loan competition, reserve holdings and aggregate liquidity. A merger changes the distribution of liquidity shocks and creates an internal money market, leading to financial cost efficiencies and more precise estimates of liquidity needs. The merged banks may increase their reserve holdings through an internalization effect or decrease them because of a diversification effect. The merger also affects loan market competition, which in turn modifies the distribution of bank sizes and aggregate liquidity needs. Mergers among large banks tend to increase aggregate liquidity needs and thus the public provision of liquidity through monetary operations of the central bank.Credit Market Competition, Bank Reserves, Internal Money Market, Banking System Liquidity, Monetary Operations

Trading volumes and transaction costs in the foreign market - evidence from daily dollar-yen spot data

A Generalized Method of Moments estimation of the determinants of dollar/yen bid-ask spreads is undertaken. In particular, a long time-series of daily spot foreign exchange trading volumes is used for the first time. In line with standard spread models and volume theories, it can be shown that unpredictable foreign exchange turnover (a measure of the rate of information arrival) increases spreads, while predictable turnover decreases them. Both effects are strongly significant when employing spot turnover instead of proxies like forward turnover as in previous studies (Bessembinder, 1994). The results are also found to be robust when unpredictable Reuters quoting frequency is used as an instrument for unpredictable trading volumes to cope with their endogeneity. Spread estimations with plain (non-decomposed) volumes are rejected as misspecified. Finally, there is evidence for the conditional heteroscedasticity of unpredictable spot foreign exchange volumes

The microstructure of the euro money market

This paper provides the first empirical examination of the microstructure of the euro money market, using tick data from brokers located in 6 countries. Special emphasis is put on the institutional environment (monetary policy decisions and their implementation, payment systems and private market structures) and its implications for intraday volatility, quoting activity, trading volume and bid-ask spreads in the overnight deposit segment. Volatility and spreads increase right after ECB monetary policy decisions, but market expectations of the interest rate changes were relatively precise during the sample period. Main refinancing operations with the open market are associated with active liquidity re-allocation, little volatility and no signs of market power or adverse selection. Spreads and volatility were high at the end of the reserve maintenance periods and during the year 2000 changeover. Even intraday, overnight rate levels hardly differ across euro area countries, reflecting active arbitrage and a high degree of integration JEL Classification: G14, E43, E52, D44euro, Financial market microstructure, high-frequency data, liquidity, monetary policy instruments, money market, overnight deposit rates, payment systems, reserve requirements, trading volume, transaction costs, Volatility

The economic impact of merger control: what is special about banking?

There is a long-standing debate about the special nature of banks. Based on a unique dataset of legislative changes in industrial countries, we identify events that strengthen competition policy, analyze their impact on banks and non-financial firms and explain the reactions observed with institutional features that distinguish banking from non-financial sectors. Covering nineteen countries for the period 1987 to 2004, we find that banks are special in that a more competition-oriented regime for merger control increases banks’ stock prices, whereas it decreases those of non-financial firms. Moreover, bank merger targets become more profitable and larger. A major determinant of the positive bank returns, after controlling inter alia for the general quality of institutions and individual bank characteristics, is the opaqueness that characterizes the institutional setup for supervisory bank merger reviews. Thus strengthening competition policy in banking may generate positive externalities in the financial system that offset unintended adverse side effects on efficiency introduced through supervisory policies focusing on prudential considerations and financial stability. Legal arrangements governing competition and supervisory control of bank mergers may therefore have important implications for real activity. JEL Classification: G21, G28, D4competition policy, financial regulation, legal institutions, mergers and acquisitions, Specialness of banks

Financial integration, specialization and systemic risk

This paper studies the implications of cross-border financial integration for financial stability when banks' loan portfolios adjust endogenously. Banks can be subject to sectoral and aggregate domestic shocks. After integration they can share these risks in a complete interbank market. When banks have a comparative advantage in providing credit to certain industries, financial integration may induce banks to specialize in lending. An enhanced concentration in lending does not necessarily increase risk, because a well-functioning interbank market allows to achieve the necessary diversification. This greater need for risk sharing, though, increases the risk of cross-border contagion and the likelihood of widespread banking crises. However, even though integration increases the risk of contagion it improves welfare if it permits banks to realize specialization benefits. JEL Classification: D61, E44, G21.Financial integration, specialization, interbank market, financial contagion.