The pricing of the prime rate

Abstract

The prime business loan rate has become widely viewed as one of the chief barometers of credit market conditions, yet we know little about how this rate is determined. The objective of this paper is to attempt to further our understanding of the prime rate through an analysis of recent prime rate movements in order to determine if the prime reacts immediately to changes in money market conditions, as would be the case of a competitively-determined price, or whether the prime demonstrates properties of an oligopolistic price. The empirical findings contained herein appear to support the hypothesis that the prime rate is an average of a bank's cost of its currently- and previously-issued, but still outstanding, managed liabilities. This type of pricing minimizes the interest rate risk in the bank's balance sheet and facilities coordination and discipline in an oligopolistic market. Furthermore, it also appears that banks may be using the prime rate in conjunction with below prime lending to price discriminate between customers on the basis of whether these customers have alternative channels of short-term financing.