Community banks have long played an important role in the U.S. economy, providing loans and other financial services to households and small businesses within their local markets. In recent years, technological and legal developments, as well as changes in the business strategies of larger banks...

With firm profitability data for a cross-section of geographic markets, it is possible to determine the relative importance of firm and market effects on profitability. Analysis of variance from a panel of multibank holding companies in Texas suggests that firm effects are more important than...

The threat of entry is an important factor in the evaluation of the potential competitive effects of proposed mergers and acquisitions. In the evaluation of proposed bank mergers, a high probability of entry, or strong potential competition, is often found to mitigate the potential...

We study the relationship between banking competition and the transmission of monetary policy through the bank lending channel. Using business small loan origination data provided from the Community Reinvestment Act from 1996-2002 in our analysis, we are able to reaffirm the existence of the...

In response to fundamental changes in regulation and technology, the financial industry around the world is undergoing an unprecedented wave of consolidation. A growing body of empirical literature has attempted to measure the efficiency gains from Mamp;As; however there is little sense of how...

Antitrust analysis of bank mergers defines banking markets to be geographically local and to consist of the cluster of financial products supplied by commercial banks. This definition is based on assumptions about households' and small businesses' behavior in purchasing banking services. This...