Finance and Efficiency: Do Bank Branching Regulations Matter?

Review of Finance, Forthcoming

46 Pages Posted: 14 May 2010

See all articles by Viral V. Acharya

Viral V. Acharya

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business; New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Jean M. Imbs

Paris School of Economics (PSE); NYU Abu Dhabi; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Jason Sturgess

Queen Mary University of London

Multiple version iconThere are 4 versions of this paper

Date Written: February 26, 2010

Abstract

We document that the deregulation of bank branching restrictions in the United States triggered a reallocation across sectors, with end effects on state-level volatility. The change cannot be explained simply by shifts in sector-level returns and volatility. A reallocation effect is at play, which we study in the context of mean-variance portfolio theory applied to sectoral returns. We find the reallocation is particularly strong in sectors characterized by young, small and external finance dependent firms, and for states that have a larger share of such sectors. The findings suggest that improving bank access to branching affects the sectoral specialization of output, in a manner that depends on the variance-covariance properties of sectoral returns, rather than on their average only.

Keywords: Financial Development, Growth, Volatility, Diversification, Deregulation, Liberalization, Mean-variance Efficiency

JEL Classification: E44, F02, F36, O16, G11, G21, G28

Suggested Citation

Acharya, Viral V. and Acharya, Viral V. and Imbs, Jean M. and Imbs, Jean M. and Sturgess, Jason, Finance and Efficiency: Do Bank Branching Regulations Matter? (February 26, 2010). Review of Finance, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1604511

Viral V. Acharya

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~vacharya

New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance ( email )

Stern School of Business
44 West 4th Street
New York, NY 10012-1126
United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Jean M. Imbs

NYU Abu Dhabi ( email )

PO Box 129188
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates

Paris School of Economics (PSE) ( email )

48 Boulevard Jourdan
Paris, 75014 75014
France

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Jason Sturgess (Contact Author)

Queen Mary University of London ( email )

Mile End Road
London, London E1 4NS
United Kingdom

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