In this paper we describe the first decades of the history of the Swedish ATM (Automated teller machine). Sweden was one of the pioneers in using ATMs, starting with cash dispensers or cash machines in 1967. The first machine was made operational and shown to the press on July 6, 1967, in Uppsala at Upsala Sparbank, only one week after the first cash machine in the world was made operational in...

We investigate a banking system subject to repeated macroeconomic productivity shocks. By lowering the interest rates, the central bank can increase the intermediation margin, which fosters the recapitalization of banks. We show that without lowering interest rates, the banking system faces the risk of collapsing. When interest policy is aimed only at avoiding a banking collapse, the economy co...

Cet article est consacre aux casses d’épargne de l’Allemagne (Sparkassen) regardes dans un contexte régional, en faisant partie de la structure des mesures assurant l’équilibre régional. Ces mesures tendent de coutume assurera plutôt l’équilibre régional, ont actuellement le rôle de promouvoir le potentiel de développement de la région (réplique : Agenda de Lisbonne). Notre article traite la qu...

In recent years, central banks have increasingly turned to “forward guidance” as a central tool of monetary policy, especially as interest rates around the world have hit the zero lower bound. Standard monetary models imply that far future forward guidance is extremely powerful: promises about far future interest rates have huge effects on current economic outcomes, and these effects grow with ...

An architectural technique is proposed to reduce power dissipation in conventional caches. Our technique is based on the observation of cache access locality: current access is likely to touch the same cache set including the tags as the last access. We show that considerable amount of power driving the cache tag and data banks can be saved if this cache access locality is fully exploited. This...

Adaptive filtering in subbands have originally been proposed to overcome limitations of classic adaptive algorithms in some areas. In general, subband adaptive filters offer computational savings, as well as faster convergence over the classical Least Mean Squared (LMS) algorithm. However, improvements to current subband adaptive filters could be further enhanced by a more elegant choice of the...

This paper discusses a new approach to controlling for the environment when estimating efficiency. In response to the literature on the international comparison of bank efficiency, we draw the attention to a local dimension of comparison. By introducing geographical weights and estimating local frontiers for each US savings bank for the 2001-09 period, we find that the bank technical performanc...

In this paper, we show the importance of accounting for heterogeneity among sample firms in stochastic frontier analysis. For a fairly homogenous sample of German savings and cooperative banks, we analyze how alternative theoretical assumptions regarding the nature of heterogeneity can be modeled and the extent to which the respective empirical specifications affect estimated efficiency levels ...

The aim of this paper is to assess how German savings banks adjust capital and risk under capital regulation. We estimate a modified version of the model developed by Shrieves and Dahl (1992). This paper contributes to the literature in three ways. First, we test the capital buffer theory (Marcus 1984, Milne and Whalley 2002). Second, we use dynamic panel data techniques that explicitly take un...

Bank fees often strike fear in the heart of the average banking customer. According to a survey by Bank-rate, a company that reports on banks and banking, customers continue to get smashed with higher fees, ranging from ATM charges to minimum-balance fees. In addition, some customers are even charged a commission fee just to speak to a real live bank teller! In a recent checking account pricing...