Although domestic mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the financial services industry have increased steadily over the past two decades, international M&As were relatively rare until recently. This paper uses a novel dataset of over 2,300 mergers that took place between 1978 and 2001 to analyse...

If the technological revolution which has taken place over the past decades has lowered information costs and if information costs increase in distance, distance should – ceteris paribus – become less important in determining international bank lending. We are using a dataset on assets...

Information costs and regulatory barriers are the main distinguishing features of international financial markets as compared to national financial markets. This paper presents a simple model of the impact of these factors on banksÂ’ cross-border activities and provides empirical evidence....