This paper surveys recent literature on international mergers and acquisitions in banking. We focus on three main questions. First, what are the determinants of cross-border mergers of commercial banks? Second, do cross-border mergers affect the efficiency of banks? Third, what are the risk...

Recent literature on multinational firms has stressed the importance of low productivity as a barrier to the cross-border expansion of firms. But firms may also need external finance to shoulder the costs of entering foreign markets. We develop a model of multinational firms facing real and...

Exporters and multinationals are larger and more productive than their domestic counterparts. In addition to productivity, financial constraints and labor market constraints might constitute barriers to entry into foreign markets. We present new empirical evidence on the extensive and intensive...

Recent initiatives to hold back cross-border mergers and acquisitions for 'strategic' reasons have made headline news. We discuss whether the initiatives may mark the start of a new protectionist era. We argue that standard globalization indicators show no such signs. However, an increasing...

International bank portfolios constitute a large component of international country portfolios. Yet, their response to macroeconomic conditions and their impact on the international transmission of business cycles developments remains largely unexplored. We use a novel dataset on banks?...

Macroeconomic risks could magnify individual bank risk. Mitigating the influence of economy-wide risks on banks could therefore be very important to maintain a smooth-running banking system. In this paper, we explore the extent to which macroeconomic risks affect banks. We use a bank-level...