This article examines the primary motivation of the bank merger waves in the 1990s. Our investigation of the factors that determine bid premiums paid for target banks focuses on the importance of the financial characteristics of the targets, composition of their boards of directors, and the...

Contagion usually refers to the spillover of the effects of shocks from one or more firms to other firms. Most studies of contagion limit their analysis to how shock affect firms in the same industry, or "intra-industry" contagion. The purpose of this paper is to explore and document the likely...

In this paper, we provide evidence on the value of banking relationships by examining the stock market valuation impact of three large bank failures in Japan in 1997 and 1998 on their clients and the clients of surviving banks. Bank failures are theorized to have adverse consequences for other...

The efficiency of Japanese stock market to appropriately price the riskiness of Japanese firms has been frequently questioned, particularly with respect to Japanese banks which have experienced severe financial distress in recent years. This paper examines the response in the stock market...