"We hypothesize that banks become better able to manage acquisitions, and investors become better able to value those acquisitions, as these parties "learn-by-observing" information that spills-over from previous bank M&As. We find evidence consistent with these hypotheses for 216 M&As of large,...

"Despite operating under substantial regulatory constraints, we find that commercial banks manage their investments largely consistent with the predictions of portfolio choice models with capital market imperfections. Based on 1990-2002 data for small (assets less than $1 billion) U.S....

"We review how deregulation, technological advance, and increased competitive rivalry have affected the size and health of the U.S. community banking sector and the quality and availability of banking products and services. We then develop a simple theoretical framework for analyzing how these...