TY  - JOUR
AU  - Beck,Thorsten
AU  - Demirguc-Kunt,Asli
AU  - Levine,Ross
TI  - Bank Concentration and Crises
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9921
PY  - 2003
Y2  - August 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9921
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9921.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Thorsten Beck
The World Bank
1818 H Street N.W.
Mail Stop MC 3-307
Washington, D.C. 20433
E-Mail: tbeck@worldbank.org

Asli Demirguc-Kunt
World Bank
1818 H Street
Washington, DC  20433
E-Mail: ademirguckunt@worldbank.org

Ross Levine
Department of Economics
Brown University
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-2170
E-Mail: ross_levine@brown.edu
AB  - Motivated by public policy debates about bank consolidation and conflicting theoretical predictions about the relationship between the market structure of the banking industry and bank fragility, this paper studies the impact of bank concentration, bank regulations, and national institutions on the likelihood of suffering a systemic banking crisis. Using data on 70 countries from 1980 to 1997, we find that crises are less likely in economies with (i) more concentrated banking systems, (ii) fewer regulatory restrictions on bank competition and activities, and (iii) national institutions that encourage competition.
ER  -