How do banks react to increased interbank competition? Recent banking theory offers conflicting predictions about the impact of competition on bank orientation - i.e., the choice of relationship based versus transactional banking - and bank industry specialization. We empirically investigate the...

This paper studies the impact of bank mergers on firm-bank lending relationships using information from individual loan contracts in Belgium. We analyze the effects of bank mergers on the probability of borrowers maintaining their lending relationships and on their ability to continue tapping...