During periods of heightened uncertainty—such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine—firms are more likely to default due to unpredictable returns. These uncertainty shocks can significantly harm the economy, especially when banking competition is low. In less competitive banking sectors, banks tend to charge higher borrowing rates, which incentivizes firms to take on greater financial risk, thereby increasing their probability of default.
Over the past few decades, the US banking sector has experienced a marked decline in competition. To assess the implications of this trend, I develop a structural macroeconomic model that incorporates financial frictions and imperfect banking competition. In the model, reduced competition amplifies the negative impact of uncertainty shocks through a "risk-shifting" mechanism: higher borrowing costs push borrower to take more risk, leading to more defaults. In response, banks reduce credit supply, further contracting economic activity.
I compare two versions of the model—one calibrated to a high-competition banking environment and the other to a low-competition one, as seen in the US since 2000. As shown in the figure, the results show that in the low-competition scenario, GDP falls by 0.1 percentage points more one year after an uncertainty shock. The mechanism behind this amplification is that higher market power among banks encourages riskier borrower behavior, resulting in a sharper rise in defaults and a stronger pullback in lending. In fact, according to the model, the recent drop in competition has led to a 0.6 percentage point increase in borrower default rates.
These theoretical findings are supported by empirical evidence. Using panel local projection methods on data from 34 countries between 2000 and 2020, I show that increases in uncertainty lead to significantly larger declines in GDP in countries with more concentrated banking sectors. This suggests that banking competition plays a key role in shaping how economies absorb and respond to uncertainty shocks.
Keywords: Financial Frictions, Financial Intermediaries, Heterogeneous Agents, Market Power, Uncertainty
Codes JEL : E32, E44, G21, L13