The U.S. banking industry experienced a sustained and unprecedented merger movement from 1980 to 1998. During that period, approximately 8,000 bank mergers occurred, involving about $2.4 trillion in acquired assets. The 1990s, especially 1994-98, was a period of numerous large bank mergers,...

Mergers reached record levels in the banking industry as well as in the industrial sector in the second half of the 1980s. The general economic conditions of the period and changes in the enforcement of the antitrust laws regarding mergers may have eased the way for some combinations, but there...