What distinguished financial institutions from other firms is the relatively small share of real assets on their balance sheets. Thus, the direct impact of financial institutions on the real economy is relatively minor. The indirect impact of financial markets and institutions on economic...

Real estate cycles and banking cycles may occur independently but they are correlated in a remarkable number of instances ranging over a wide variety of institutional arrangements, in both advanced industrial nations and emerging economies. During the recent Asian financial crisis, the most...

Over the last decade interest in the role of finance in economic growth has revived. Building from the pioneering work of Goldsmith (1965) and the insights of Shaw (1973) and McKinnon (1973), the more recent work examines the role of financial institutions and financial markets in corporate...

Traditional explanations of market crashes rely on the collapse of an asset price bubble or the exacerbation of an information asymmetry sufficient to cause less-informed participants to withdraw from the market. We show that markets can crash even though asset prices have not deviated from...

This paper examines the role of capital in financial institutions. As the introductory article to a conference on the role of capital management in banking and insurance, it describes the authors' views of why capital is important, how market-generated capital requirements' differ from...

The authors describe the function of intermediation in the financial sector and the role of regulatory supervision in managing the inherent structural vulnerability of the process.<p> <p>Financial intermediaries provide both a risk taking and a maturity transformation function in mobilizing savings...</p></p>

Traditional theories of intermediation are based on transaction costs and asymmetric information. They are designed to account for institutions which take deposits or issue insurance policies and channel funds to firms. However, in recent decades there have been significant changes. Although...

This paper investigates the demand by households for transaction services from the financial sector. Households buy several goods with any of several media of exchange. The households choose the medium of exchange to use for each type of good, how much of each type of medium to hold, and the...

The banking industry has experienced an unprecedented level of consolidation on a belief that gains can accrue through expense reduction, increased market power, reduced earnings volatility, and scale and scope economies. A review of the literature suggests that the value gains that are alleged...

The role of the insurance industry in the retirement assets market is examined. The popular image of the industry as one in decline is scrutinized by drawing upon various governmental and industry data sources.<p> <p>Our examination begins with the traditional area of corporate pensions, specifically,...</p></p>