Report

Bank integration and business volatility

Abstract: We investigate how bank migration across state lines over the last quarter century has affected the size and covariance of business fluctuations within states. Starting with a two-state version of the unit banking model in Holmstrom and Tirole (1997), we conclude that the theoretical effect of integration on business cycle size is ambiguous, because some shocks are dampened by integration while others are amplified. Empirically, we find that integration diminishes employment growth fluctuations within states and decreases the deviations in employment growth across states. In other words, business cycles within states become smaller with integration but more alike. Our results for the United States bear on the financial convergence under way in Europe, where banks remain highly fragmented across nations.

Keywords: Business cycles; Financial institutions; Employment; Emigration and immigration;

JEL Classification: E3; G2; N1;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Part of Series: Staff Reports

Publication Date: 2000-12-01

Number: 129

Note: For a published version of this report, see Donald Morgan, Bertrand Rime, and Phil Straphan, "Bank Integration and Business Volatility," Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 4 (May 2004): 1555-84.