We explore the impact of large banks and of financial openness for aggregate growth. Large banks matter because of granular effects: if markets are very concentrated in terms of the size distribution of banks, idiosyncratic shocks at the bank-level do not cancel out in the aggregate but can affect macroeconomic outcomes. Financial openness may affect GDP growth in and of itself, and it may also influence concentration in banking and thus the impact of bank-specific shocks for the aggregate economy. To test these relationships, we use different measures of de jure and de facto financial openness in a panel dataset for 79 countries and the years 1996–2009. Our research has three main findings: First, bank-level shocks significantly impact upon GDP. Second, financial openness tends to lower GDP growth. Third, granular effects tend to be stronger in financially closed economies.

Governments often justify interventions into the financial system in the form of bail outs or liquidity assistance with the systemic importance of large banks for the real economy. In this paper, we analyze whether idiosyncratic shocks to loan growth at large banks have effects on real GDP growth. We employ a measure of idiosyncratic shocks which follows Gabaix (forthcoming). He shows that idiosyncratic shocks to large firms have an impact on US GDP growth. In an application to the banking sector, we find evidence that changes in lending by large banks have a significant short-run impact on GDP growth. Episodes of negative loan growth rates and the Eastern European countries in our sample drive these results.

We use a new bank-level dataset to study the FDI-versus-exports decision for German banks. We extend the literature on multinational firms in two directions. First, we simultaneously study FDI and the export of cross-border financial services. Second, we test recent theories on multinational firms which show the importance of firm heterogeneity [Helpman, E., Melitz, M.J., Yeaple, S.R., 2004. Export versus FDI. American Economic Review 94 (1), 300–316]. Our results show that FDI and cross-border services are complements rather than substitutes. Heterogeneity of banks has a significant impact on the internationalization decision. More profitable and larger banks are more likely to expand internationally than smaller banks. They have more extensive foreign activities, and they are more likely to engage in FDI in addition to cross-border financial services.

We assess the effects of increased bank competition on macroeconomic and lending dynamics and on the transmission of monetary policy. Applying panel local projections to state-level data, we, in a first step, investigate the dynamic effects of fiercer bank competition induced by deregulation allowing geographical expansion of banks across state borders in the 1980s and early-1990s. We allow for possible adjustments before the new laws became effective due to potential anticipation effects. Our findings suggest that these events were anticipated and that they temporarily increased economic activity as well as business and consumer lending. We also find a permanent increase in real estate lending and house prices. In a second step, we show that the impact of monetary policy on economic activity, house prices and lending tended to become stronger after interstate banking deregulation.

Complexity of banks can have important ramifications for the performance and the risks of the banking system. Financial sector reforms that were implemented in the past decade have thus aimed to reduce and to better manage the risk implications of bank complexity. Yet, surprisingly little is known about changes in complexity across countries, its drivers, and its effects. The International Banking Research Network (IBRN) used data and analytical advances to generate rich cross-country insights on the complexity and riskiness of banking organizations. The initiative has four key findings. First, the largest banks in countries tend to be the more complex ones. Yet, even controlling for size, there is substantial diversity across banking organizations in terms of complexity choices. Second, over the past decade, banking organizations have tended to reduce complexity by limiting the number of affiliates in both domestic and foreign locations. Generally, however, complexity patterns are fairly persistent. Third, regulatory changes can alter both banking organization complexity and the associated risk profiles. Fourth, the link between complexity and risks involves trade-offs: diversification benefits and reductions in liquidity risk may weigh against agency problems, monitoring costs, and systemic risk contributions arising from higher complexity.

Weak bank supervision could give banks the ability to shift risk from themselves to supervisors. We use cross-border bank mergers as a natural experiment to test changes in risk and the impact of supervision. We examine cross-border bank mergers and find that the supervisory structures of the partners’ countries influence changes in post-merger total risk. An acquirer from a country with strong supervision lowers total risk after a cross-border merger. However, total risk increases when the target bank is located in a country with relatively strong supervision. This result is consistent with strong host regulators limiting the risky activities of their local banks. Foreign-owned competitors could then engage in the risky projects, especially if the foreign banks’ supervisors are not strong. An acquirer entering a country with strong supervision appears to shift risk back to its home country. The results suggest that bank supervisors can reduce total banking risk in their countries by being strong.

We investigate the determinants of sovereign bond holdings of German banks and the implications of such holdings for bank risk. We use granular information on all German banks and all sovereign debt exposures in the years 2005–2013. As regards the determinants of sovereign bond holdings of banks, we find that these are larger for weakly capitalized banks, banks that are active on capital markets, and for large banks. Yet, only around two thirds of all German banks hold sovereign bonds. Macroeconomic fundamentals were significant drivers of sovereign bond holdings only after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. With the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis, German banks reallocated their portfolios toward sovereigns with lower debt ratios and bonds with lower yields. With regard to the implications for bank risk, we find that low-risk government bonds decreased the risk of German banks, especially for savings and cooperative banks. Holdings of high-risk government bonds, in turn, increased the risk of commercial banks during the sovereign debt crisis.

Size matters in banking. In this paper, we explore whether shocks originating at large banks affect the probability of distress of smaller banks and thus the stability of the banking system. Our analysis proceeds in two steps. In a first step, we follow Gabaix [Gabaix, X., 2008a. The Granular Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111765] and construct a measure of idiosyncratic shocks at large banks, the so-called Banking Granular Residual. This measure documents the importance of size effects for the German banking system. In a second step, we incorporate this measure of idiosyncratic shocks at large banks into an integrated stress-testing model for the German banking system following De Graeve et al. (2008). We find that positive shocks at large banks reduce the probability of distress of small banks.

Although domestic mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the financial services industry have increased steadily over the past two decades, international M&As were until recently relatively rare. Moreover, the share of cross-border mergers in the banking industry is low compared with other industries. This paper uses a novel dataset of over 3000 mergers that took place between 1985 and 2001 to analyze the determinants of international bank mergers. We test the extent to which information costs and regulations hold back merger activity. Our results suggest that information costs significantly impede cross-border bank mergers. Regulations also influence cross-border bank merger activity. Hence, policy makers can create environments that encourage cross-border activity, but information cost barriers must be overcome even in (legally) integrated markets.