Rosenstein-Rodan (1943) and others posit that rapid development requires a 'big push' -- the coordinated rapid growth of diverse complementary industries, and suggests a role for government in providing such coordination. We argue that Japan's zaibatsu, or pyramidal business groups, provided...

We examine how financial crises redistribute risk, employing novel empirical methods and micro data from the largest financial crisis of the 20th century - the Great Depression. Using balance-sheet and systemic risk measures at the bank level, we build an econometric model with incidental...

This paper studies the impact of technological change and regulatory competition on governmental efforts to generate rents for banks in two stylized regulatory environments. In the first environment, incentive-conflicted regulators attempt to create rents by restricting the size and scope of...

We examine the effects of bank merger and local market characteristics on local small business lending. Mergers involving small, in-state acquirers are positively associated with small business loan (SBL) originations in counties where target banks are located. Conversely, mergers involving...

Banks are in the business of taking calculated risks. Expanding the geographic footprint of an organization's profit-making activities changes the geographic pattern of its exposure to loss in ways that are hard for regulators and supervisors to observe. This paper tests and confirms the...

We investigate the motives and consequences of the consolidation of banks in Japan during the period of fiscal year 1990-2004 using a comprehensive dataset. Our analysis suggests that the government's too-big-to-fail policy played an important role in the mergers and acquisitions (M&As), though...

The merger of Fleet and BankBoston in September 1999 resulted in a regional New England lending market in which only one large, universal bank remained. We explore the extent to which that merger resulted in monopoly rents for the combined entity in some niches within the regional loan market....

We analyze data on fees paid to investment bankers and acquisition premia paid for targets in cash tender offers. Our results are broadly consistent with the predictions of a benign view of the role of investment banks in advising acquisition targets. Fees to investment banks are correlated with...

Previous studies of event returns surrounding bank mergers show that banks gain value in megamergers and additional value when they absorb in-market competitors. A portion of these gains has been traced to the increased bargaining power of banks vis-à-vis regulators and other competitors. We...