This study aims to analyze the impact of macroeconomic variables, especially the prime rate of the economy, on the interest margin (spread) charged by Brazilian banks from 2000 to 2010. To achieve this goal, the study adopted the behavior model of the banking firm developed by Ho and Saunders...

The prevailing view in the literature is that, in the long run, an increase in the level of interest rates will impact positively on banks' net interest margins. Using a time series of more than 40 years for the German banking system, we confirm this effect (the net interest margin increases by...