We present estimates of how much bank loans and real activity in small businesses responded to changes in banks' capital conditions and other bank and aggregate economic conditions. Using data for 1989–1992 by state, we estimated the effects of those factors on employment, payrolls, and the number of firms by firm size, as well as on gross state product. In response to declines in their own bank capital, small banks shrank their loan portfolios considerably more than large banks did. Large banks tended to increase loans more when small banks were under increased capital pressure than vice versa. Real economic activity was reduced more by capital declines and by loan declines at small banks than at large banks. Small banks were making “high-powered loans” in that dollar-for-dollar loan declines in their loans had larger impacts on economic activity than loan declines at large banks did. Capital declines at small banks produced larger changes in economic activity dollar-for-dollar than capital declines at large banks did. Aggregate economic conditions had smaller effects on small firms than on large firms and smaller effects on small banks than on large banks. The evidence hinted that the volume of loans made under Small Business Administration (SBA) loan guarantee programs shrank less in response to declines in bank capital than the volume of loans not made under the SBA loan guarantee programs.

The payments literature ranges from theoretical general equilibrium models to practical payment issues related to the day-to-day operation of various national networks for the transfer of money. It is an area where economic theory and institutional structure are often closely intertwined and it is currently undergoing significant change, shifting from costly paper-based systems to technologically advanced electronic payments. The extant literature is surveyed here with the aim of integrating the various strands of payment research which have been largely pursued separately. In addition, we present newly available data to illustrate and investigate a number of underdeveloped areas in this literature.

We investigate how banking market competition, informational opacity, and sensitivity to shocks have changed over the last three decades by examining the persistence of firm-level rents. We develop propagation mechanisms with testable implications to isolate the sources of persistence. Our analysis suggests that different processes underlie persistence at the high and low ends of the performance distribution. Our tests suggest that impediments to competition and informational opacity continue to be strong determinants of persistence; that the reduction in geographic regulatory restrictions had little effect on competitiveness; and that persistence remains sensitive to regional/macroeconomic shocks. The findings also suggest reasons for the recent record profitability of the industry.

Unfettered nationwide bank branching raises the issue of whether consolidation of banks’ “back-office” operations, such as their payment processing, reduces operating costs. Whether centralized processing of payments reduces costs depends on the size and range of scale economies, the relative prices of data processing and telecommunication inputs, and changes in technology in addition to the number of sites operated. While consolidating payment operations into fewer sites may reduce average data processing costs, those cost savings may be more than offset by associated increases in telecommunications expenses. To investigate the potential effects of consolidation on future banking operations, we look at the experience of the Federal Reserve in consolidating its Fedwire electronic funds transfer operation over 1979 to 1996. Previous research suggested that scale economies in Fedwire payment processing were minimal and that the observed declines in average Fedwire production costs were largely attributable to technical advance. Our estimates suggest more nearly the opposite. We find that the Fedwire funds transfer operation exhibited large scale economies but little technical advance beyond that already embodied in the technology-adjusted input prices of data processing and telecommunication inputs. We also find that the consolidation of Fedwire into fewer offices contributed around one-fourth of the overall reduction in Fedwire average cost.