The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the macroeconomic performance and welfare consequences of complex banking structures (banking complexity) across two dimensions: liquidity and investment complexity. The first chapter provides an overview of the financial and macroeconomic literature related to banking and how information affects the macroeconomy. The second chapter presents a theoretical framework generalizing banking complexity by endogenizing the salvage value of failed investments by a joint information production function. Several hypotheses are postulated from the framework. First, higher banking complexity acts a stabilizer for small economic shocks suggesting macroeconomic resilience. Second, higher banking complexity acts as an amplifier for large economic shocks suggesting macroeconomic fragility. Lastly, higher investment complexity preserves the stabilizing properties for complex banking. The third chapter empirically tests the hypotheses with matched bank-firm US syndicated loan data which remains broadly consistent with all three hypotheses.
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