We study the optimal joint design of prudential supervision and deposit guarantee regulations in a multi-country, integrated banking market, where policy-makers have preferences regarding profitability and stability of the banking sector. Non-coordinated policies will tend to yield too little supervision and too much deposit insurance. The paper concludes with recommendations on policy priorities in this area

This paper is the first in the literature to examine the determinants of US credit card penalty fees. Many critics of credit card fees – including a number of US Senators – have argued that credit card penalty fees reflect banks’ market share. Using a unique data set we find that fees are increasing in customer risk which supports the position of defenders of penalty fees, such as banks. However, our finding that fees are increasing in a bank's market share is consistent with the concerns expressed by politicians and regulators. We also find card penalty fees are direct substitutes for card interest rates

While market prices can be useful tools for bank regulation, recent theoretical work argues that reliance on prices can be counterproductive when secondary markets are stressed and illiquid. Evidence from the financial crisis unearthed by Bhat et al. (in press) provides empirical validation of these arguments. Though Bhat et al. do not fully acknowledge it, their findings suggest that forcing banks to count liquidity-induced unrealized losses in securities holdings against regulatory capital destroys value and exposes bank creditors, including taxpayers, to more risk. Policy makers contemplating greater regulatory reliance on market prices ignore these findings at their peril

Estimates of ex-ante equity premia are important in planning investments in pension funds, life insurance pools, and for other long-term financial obligations or goals. However, while global cross-border investment positions and flows have been rising, there is little research on non-US ex-ante equity premia or on their determinants in a global setting. This paper uses data on a recent 8-year period from 33 countries and models simultaneously our estimate of the ex-ante equity premium as a dependent variable and our measure of financial architecture as an instrumental variable. We document that ex-ante equity premia are larger in countries that have a more bank-oriented financial architecture, are wealthier, and have better governance. These results are robust to alternative model specifications and estimation techniques. Given the importance of equity premia and financial architecture, these results should be of much interest to scholars, managers, regulators, and policy makers