This article designs a framework for evaluating the causes, consequences, and future implications of financial services industry consolidation, reviews the extant research literature within the context of this framework (over 250 references), and suggests fruitful avenues for future research....

We address the causes, consequences, and implications of the cross-border consolidation of financial institutions by reviewing several hundred studies, providing comparative international data, and estimating cross-border banking efficiency in France, Germany, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S....

We provide evidence on the validity of the conglomeration hypothesis versus the strategic focus hypothesis for financial institutions using data on U.S. insurance companies. We distinguish between the hypotheses using profit scope economies, which measures the relative efficiency of joint versus...

We examine the economics of financing small business in private equity and debt markets. Firms are viewed through a financial growth cycle paradigm in which different capital structures are optimal at different points in the cycle. We show the sources of small business finance, and how capital...

We examine the effects of bank Mamp;As on small business lending. Our methodology permits empirical analysis of the great majority of U.S. bank Mamp;As since the late 1970s -- over 6,000 Mamp;As involving over 10,000 banks (some active banks are counted multiple times). We are the first to...

We study the effects of structural changes in banking markets on the supply of credit to small businesses. Specifically, we examine whether bank mergers and acquisitions (Mamp;As) and entry have quot;externalquot; effects on small business loans by other banks in the same local markets. The...

We study the dynamics of market entry following mergers and acquisitions (Mamp;As) using banking industry data. The findings suggest that Mamp;As are associated with significant subsequent increases in the probability of entry and may explain more than 20% of entry in metropolitan markets, and...

We investigate how banking market competition, informational opacity, and sensitivity to shocks have changed over the last three decades by examining the persistence of firm-level rents. We develop propagation mechanisms with testable implications to isolate the sources of persistence. Our...

This paper examines the efficiency and price effects of mergers by applying a frontier profit function to data on bank `megamergers'. We find that merged banks experience a statistically significant 16 percentage point average increase in profit efficiency rank relative to other large banks....