Does the mere presence of big banks affect macroeconomic outcomes? In this paper, we develop a theory of granularity (Gabaix, 2011) for the banking sector, introducing Bertrand competition and heterogeneous banks charging variable markups. Using this framework, we show conditions under which...

This paper presents the novel results from an internationally coordinated project by the International Banking Research Network (IBRN) on the cross-border transmission of conventional and unconventional monetary policy through banks. Teams from seventeen countries use confidential micro-banking...

The development of macroprudential policy tools has been one of the most significant changes in banking regulation in recent years. In this multi-study initiative of the International Banking Research Network, researchers from fifteen central banks and two international organizations use...

Activities of international banks have been at the core of discussions on the causes and effects of the international financial crisis. Yet we know little about the actual magnitudes and mechanisms for transmission of liquidity shocks through international banks, including the reasons for...

Activities of international banks have been at the core of discussions on the causes and effects of the international financial crisis. Yet, we know little about the actual magnitudes and mechanisms for transmission of liquidity shocks through international banks, including the reasons for...

In this paper, we use detailed data on the sovereign debt holdings of all German banks to analyse the determinants of sovereign debt exposures and the implications of sovereign exposures for bank risk. Our main findings are as follows. First, sovereign bond holdings are heterogeneous across...

This paper studies the sectoral and geographical dimensions of the response of bank lending to sectoral growth. We use several bank-level datasets provided by the Deutsche Bundesbank for the 1996-2002 period. Our results show that bank heterogeneity affects how lending responds to domestic...

Size matters in banking. In this paper, we explore whether shocks originating at large banks affect the probability of distress of smaller banks and thus the stability of the banking system. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. In a first step, we follow Gabaix (2008a) and construct a measure of...

Globalization has effected business cycle developments in OECD countries and has increased activities of firms across national borders. This paper analyzes whether these two developments are linked. We use a new firm-level dataset on the foreign activities of German firms to test whether foreign...