We test whether income from nontraditional banking activities contributed to the failures of hundreds of U.S. commercial banks during the financial crisis. Estimates from a multi-period logit model indicate that the probability of distressed bank failure declined with pure fee-based...

An important theoretical literature motivates collateral as a mechanism that mitigates adverse selection, credit rationing, and other inefficiencies that arise when borrowers have ex ante private information. There is no clear empirical evidence regarding the central implication of this...