Examining Bank Competition in Florida. Using Critical Mass as an Improved Competition Measure

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 8.0, Maastricht University, course: Financial Markets, language: English, abstract: This paper examines banking competition in Florida by measuring and comparing the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI), critical mass, and several other competition measures. First, the model and resulting competition measure calculations are explained. Second, the model is applied to banks in Florida and the results are given. Third, the results are discussed and the paper is concluded. Previous research showed that using the HHI in market power models can lead to erroneous results, a new measure was introduced: the critical mass. The results for the HHI and the C3 ratio's lead to the conclusion that there is a low concentration in the market, while the results for the critical mass show that all banks in the market have power and that the market is highly concentrated. These conflicting results cannot be completely explained by changes of key variables over time. An extension of the data set with more recent data is needed to determine which concentration measure is right.