In this paper we analyse the bank merger between DnB and Gjensidige Bank in 2003, ranked by market share as number one … and number three in the Norwegian bank market. Focusing on loans to firms, our difference-in-differences analysis shows no …

unique dataset providing information about all bank loans to Norwegian firms over several years. Rather than relying on … observed market shares, we use the distance between bank branches and firms to measure the competitiveness of local markets … banks. We find that more competition leads to more risk taking. We also examine the effects of bank competition on the …