We examine the profit efficiency of US banks chartered between 1980 and 1994. Our results suggest that profit efficiency improves rapidly at the typical de novo bank during its first three years of operation, but on average takes about nine years to reach established bank levels. Excess branch capacity, reliance on large deposits, and affiliation with a multibank holding company are associated with low profit efficiency at de novo banks. De novo national banks are initially less profit efficient than are state-chartered de novos, perhaps reflecting differences in the chartering philosophy of federal and state bank regulators

We present evidence that insured deposit financing shields banks from the full costs of market discipline. Moody's downgrades, indicators of increasing risk, are associated with negative abnormal equity returns that are increasing in the bank's reliance on insured deposits. Moreover, banks raise their use of insured deposits following increases in risk. These findings cast doubt on the ability of capital market participants to effectively discipline bank behavior within the current regulatory environment. More generally, our findings highlight the potential for regulation to undermine market discipline in regulated industries

This paper presents a model of incentive compatible bank regulation under moral hazard and adverse selection. We derive a wide range of simple and conceptually implementable mechanisms that can solve each type of incentive problem separately and also achieve the first-best outcome – but only when regulatory instruments involve ex post pricing that is contingent on the bank's performance relative to the market. An important feature of these mechanisms is that they do not involve a subsidy to the bank. When the regulator faces both moral hazard and adverse selection simultaneously, we identify the conditions under which the same mechanism can achieve the first-best solution

From 1863–1935, regulators imposed contingent liability on bank shareholders to discourage risk taking. Using data from 1900 to 1915, I find that banks subject to stricter liability rules have lower equity and asset volatility, hold a lower proportion of risky assets, and are less likely to increase their investment in risky assets when their net worth declines, consistent with the hypothesis that stricter liability discourages commercial bank risk taking. These findings provide lessons for current bank regulatory policy and show that the shape of the residual claimant's payoff function has a significant impact on managerial incentives and firm performance

Federal Reserve Regulation A imposes formal guidelines on borrowing from the discount window and ensures that the facility is used for appropriate purposes. In a way, this regulation imposes a nonprice mechanism that compels depository institutions to be more prudent in exercising their borrowing privileges. In the 1980s, however, banks became increasingly more reluctant to borrow adjustment credit from the discount window. This behavior is puzzling because discount window guidelines have not changed. This paper investigates the reasons behind the weakened demand for borrowed reserves. Our empirical findings suggest that the growing reluctance to borrow stems from the deteriorating financial position of banks during this period. In particular, banks avoided the discount window because they feared that market participants might have interpreted their visits as a signal of serious funding difficulties