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ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

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Figure 6-iv<br />

Top 5 Banks as Share of GDP in 2015<br />

Bank Assets as Percent of GDP<br />

450<br />

400<br />

350<br />

300<br />

250<br />

200<br />

150<br />

100<br />

50<br />

0<br />

Source: Bloomberg; International Monetary Fund (IMF); CEA Calculations.<br />

sures, U.S. banks also do not appear to be particularly large compared<br />

with those of other advanced economies.<br />

When is “Big” Bad?<br />

Large banks pose several potential risks to the economy. First, large<br />

banks have the potential to engage in monopolistic and rent-seeking<br />

behavior, crowding out smaller institutions. Economists often measure<br />

the potential for such behavior by the concentration of large firms<br />

within a sector. Several studies show that in the run-up and immediate<br />

aftermath of the financial crisis, large banks increasingly dominated the<br />

global financial sector. For example, International Financial Services<br />

London Research found that the share of assets of the 10 largest global<br />

banks compared with the largest 1000 rose from 14 percent in 1999 to<br />

26 percent in 2009 (Goldstein and Veron 2011). However, there is some<br />

evidence that this trend may have changed in recent years in the United<br />

States. World Bank data shows that bank concentration (assets of the five<br />

largest banks as a share of total banking assets) in the United States rose<br />

until 2010 before stabilizing at about 47 percent. In the United Kingdom,<br />

Eurozone, and Switzerland, bank concentration has been considerably<br />

higher than in the United States and increased sharply between 2013 and<br />

2014 (Figure 6-v).<br />

Second, the failure of a large financial institution could cause the<br />

failure of other financial institutions with which it has business relationships.<br />

Economists refer to the risk that the failure of one bank may pose<br />

Strengthening the Financial System | 371

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