The proposed SDN documents the evolution of bank size and activities over the past 20 years. It discusses whether this evolution can be explained by economies of scale or “too big to fail” subsidies. The paper then presents evidence on the extent to which bank size and market-based...

A secured letter-of-credit loan allows a lender to make larger loans than would be permissible on an unsecured basis, maximizing a risky borrower's investment capital. Empirical evidence shows that secured letters of credit are used by borrowers who are informationally opaque and have higher...