The inability of most bank merger studies to control for hidden bailouts may lead to biased results. In this study, we … employ a unique data set of approximately 1,000 mergers to analyze the determinants of bank mergers. We use data on the …

German banks experienced a merger wave throughout the 1990s. However, the success of bank mergers remains a continuous …

The inability of most bank merger studies to control for hidden bailouts may …

represent exogenous shocks to the (initially non-distressed) acquiring bank. We find that in the years after a distressed merger … acquiring bank and not by real economic contagion …