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The Term Auction Facility (TAF) was designed by the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis to inject emergency short-term funds into banks, as a supplement to the lender of last resort discount window offerings. We describe how the Federal Reserve altered the design of the Term Auction Facility (TAF) over the course of the financial crisis and examine the utilization of this stand-alone facility. Most specifically we detail the impact of the greatly increased offering amounts in all auctions after October 2008, which resulted in the facility no longer auctioning scarcely available funds. We also document significantly different usage of the facility by FDIC-insured community and non-community banks, consistent with the notion of a two-tiered banking system in the U.S. Community banks were far less likely to use the facility than larger, non-community banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of bank market structure differences within U.S. states on entrepreneurial activity. A panel model is used to evaluate differences in new firm starts within the states relative to the bank market structure and competition. The results indicate that states with more small banks, as measured by the number of unit banks, and banks with more branch locations contribute to new firm creation. Overall competition, as measured by the total number of banking institutions, has a negative effect on firm creation. There is limited evidence that bank failures also have a negative impact on firm creation within the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]