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Virginia Tech

A study of regulatory goals and controls: firm size in the savings and loan industry

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Firm size, in and of itself, is hardly a "goal" of the regulators. Indeed, the growth of very large firms, and the increase in market concentration that accompanies it, will add to the debate over the adequacy of the regulator's management of the industry. It must be demonstrable that very large firms assist the regulators in attaining some of their espoused goals, goals that they might not attain otherwise. What have we learned? The evidence does not all point in one direction. On the question of whether large firms can deliver their services more efficiently than can small ones, our answer is that scale economies are not as easily demonstratable as others have concluded. Such economies turn out to be crucially dependent on the way in which they are specified in the cost function. An examination of the likely biases of each functional form suggests that only relatively small firms would experience real efficiency gains from growth. Large firms seem to be neither more nor less efficient than their smaller cousins, insofar as private costs reflect public costs.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Ph. D.
Level thesis:degree_level
doctoral
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Economics
Department dc:contributor.department
Economics
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
1978

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Atkinson, Jay M.
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Bonomo, Vittorio A.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Spann, Robert M.
  • Keating, Barry R.
  • Crain, W. Mark
  • Tullock, Gordon

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright
Language dc:language.iso
en

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-07082010-020327
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/38728

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Atkinson, Jay M.. A study of regulatory goals and controls: firm size in the savings and loan industry. doctoral thesis, Virginia Tech, 1978. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/38728