Liquidity, Synergy and Winner-take-all Effect

Abstract

The synergy between deposit-taking and lending is the specialness of banking institutions as financial intermediaries. The activities from both balance sheet and off-balance sheet could share the cost of holding liquid assets, which is based on the fact that draw-downs on loan commitments and withdrawals on deposits are not perfectly correlated. However, it matters to reveal the dynamic connections between the two sources of liquidity risk for the purpose of analyzing the real impact on individual banks from a more microscopic perspective. As the evidence shows in this study, a winner-take-all effect is hidden in the synergy and could cause local double cash outflow from particular banks. It also provides new insights on liquidity management of commercial banks.