Essays on banking regulation and the European corporate bond market.

Summary This thesis contains a theoretical paper on banking regulation and two empirical papers on the bond market. The first chapter studies the optimal allocation of lender of last resort responsibilities in a context where the collapse of a systemic bank due to a liquidity shock affects the profitability of a non-systemic bank. If the liquidity shock is small, the central bank should be the lender of last resort, but in the case of a large liquidity shock an unconditional bank bailout should be implemented. Moreover, the existence of a systemic risk reinforces the weight of the central bank for non-systemic banks. Finally, systemic risk leads to ambiguous results for systemic banks because the provision of liquidity to the top tier as well as the provision of liquidity by the central bank is less stringent. The second chapter defines six liquidity indicators based on information contained in transactions in the European OTC corporate bond market. This study then measures the ability of these indicators to detect a liquidity premium. The number of brokers, the size and the volume of transactions are the most significant data. They are also complementary since they cover different aspects of the multidimensional concept of liquidity. The third chapter studies the market power of brokers in the same market. The specific position of brokers and their small number allow them to influence price adjustments in their favor, particularly on the supply side of the market.