Before the landmark State Street case in 1998, the courts and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had often denied patents to inventions that were no more than methods of doing business. But State Street swept away three decades of complex, inconsistent case law, firmly establishing the...

Using hypothetical portfolios created from historical data on industry profitability, the authors demonstrate that some combinations of banks with other industries could produce higher returns on equity with less risk.

For at least the past twenty-five years, financial services industries have been creating innovative products and services without the help of patents. The 1998 State Street Bank case changed all this, making patents freely available in these industries. Will patents help or hurt financial...

In the past few years, the pace of consolidation in the banking industry has accelerated, and combinations between banks and other financial service providers have become increasingly prevalent. In some countries, consolidation has resulted from the need to eliminate weak or problem...

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act sweeps away most of the barriers limiting the affiliation of banks with nonbank financial services providers. The focus now shifts to financial services executives who must decide which combinations provide the best opportunities to increase shareholder wealth....

Poor performance by the financial sector can be costly for society. On the other hand, a healthy banking sector has been thought by some to contribute to the growth of the economy. Recently, though, economists have begun to analyze new elements of the linkages between the financial and real...

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An examination of the risk effects of bank acquisitions that occurred between the first quarter of 1984 and the last quarter of 1993. Its findings -- that banks are not using acquisitions to increase their risk exposure and that acquisitions increase profitability over time -- cast doubt on the...

Banking consolidation, spurred by interstate branching deregulation, is changing markets' competitive structure. Policymakers and regulators have focused on the implications for customers in retail and wholesale markets rather than consolidation's impact on correspondent banking markets (where...