Competition and Bank Liquidity Creation

Does an intensification of competition among banks increase or decrease liquidity creation? By integrating the dynamic process of interstate bank deregulation that lowered barriers to competition across U.S. states over the 1980s and 1990s with the gravity model of the geographic expansion of banks, we construct time-varying measures of the competitive pressures facing each individual bank. We find that regulatory-induced competition reduced liquidity creation. Consistent with some theories, we also find that the liquidity-destroying effects of competition are mitigated among more profitable banks and heightened among smaller banks.