Post‐financial crisis changes in financial system structure: An examination of the J.P. Morgan & Co. Syndicates after the 1907 Panic

Abstract

In the post‐2008 crisis period, policy makers debate the implications of banking system concentration. To shed light on this debate, we study a postcrisis period in which less banking regulation existed than in the present period, reasoning that an examination of a less regulated market might reveal useful insights about present day market agents' postcrisis actions. The years immediately following the Panic of 1907 merit study because the period shares important features with the post‐2008 crisis financial system: increasing interconnectedness, the growing complexity accompanying the rise of new industries, the rapid deployment of new communications technologies, and substantial innovation in financial instruments. Because the 1907 crisis preceded the Clayton Anti‐Trust Act of 1914, it also provides a window into studying market agents' behavior before legislation was enacted to discourage banking system concentration. We find evidence that the market share of corporate bond underwritings at J.P. Morgan & Co. increased in the post‐1907 crisis period. We suggest a mechanism by which market share increased: a more concentrated configuration of corporate bond underwriting syndicates. We also indicate that Morgan's increased share may have been a proxy for increased certification value of underwriter reputation because of systemic knowledge Morgan gained during the resolution of the Panic of 1907 rather than for increasing bargaining power. We do not find evidence that Morgan used market power to extract rents from issuers despite increased market share and more concentrated syndicate organization. While our results must be interpreted cautiously due to data limitations, possible lessons for present‐day policy makers are that consolidations in the financial system after a financial crisis are complex. Some consolidations may come about from information and reputational gains produced during the crisis. Others may be moves by some firms to concentrate market power and still others from efforts to improve efficiencies in intermediation.

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