In a dynamic theoretical framework, commercial banks compete for customers by setting acceptance criteria for granting loans, taking regulatory requirements into account. By easing its acceptance criteria a bank faces a trade-off between attracting more demand for loans, thus making higher per...

How can competition enhance bank soundness? Does competition improve soundness via the efficiency channel? Do banks heterogeneously respond to competition? To answer these questions, we exploit an innovative measure of competition [Boone, J., A New Way to Measure Competition, EconJnl, Vol. 118,...

Empirical studies provide evidence that bank capital ratios exceed regulatory requirements. But why do banks maintain capital levels above regulatory requirements? We use data for more than 2,600 banks from 10 European countries to test recent theories suggesting that competition incentivizes...