We model the relationship between market power and both loan interest rates and bank risk without placing strong restrictions on the moral hazard problems between borrowers and banks and between banks and a government guarantor. Our results suggest that these relationships hinge on intuitive...

In the United States, antitrust authorities rely heavily on numerical measures of local banking market concentration such as the Herfindahl Hirschmann Index to assess the likely competitive effects of proposed bank mergers and acquisitions. This approach to antitrust enforcement relies on two...