This paper looks at why local markets have become increasingly dominated by multi-market firms, particularly in the banking industry, where deregulation in the early 1990s lead to extensive branch network expansion. To understand the implications of this profusion of multi-market banks, I...

We examine the determinants of entry into Italian local banking markets during the period 1991-2002 and build a simple model in which the probability of branching in a new market depends on the features of both the local market and the potential entrant. Econometric findings show that banks are...