In December 2007, the FASB revised accounting for business combinations and permitted firms to record a bargain purchase gain within current earnings at the completion of a business combination. Although the FASB contends that the new treatment improves the representational faithfulness of the...

We ask whether the financial health of the FDIC limits its ability to efficiently resolve failed institutions. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find acquirers experience large and long-lasting abnormal returns around the announcement of a failed bank acquisition when the deposit insurance...

I study the relative importance of lending and deposit-taking for bank value. Comparing outcomes for winning banks to runner-up bidders in failed bank auctions, I find winners experience a 1.5% abnormal return and this increase is mainly due to deposits, not loans. After acquisition, the winning...

We study how lobbying affects the resolution of failed banks. Using a sample of FDIC auctions between 2007 and 2016, we find that bidding banks that lobby regulators have a higher probability of winning an auction. However, the FDIC incurs larger costs in such auctions, amounting to 18.4 percent...

We study the recent episode of bank failures and provide simple facts to better understand who acquires failed banks and which forces drive the losses that the FDIC realizes from these sales. We document three distinct forces related to the allocation of failed banks to potential acquirers....

We study how lobbying affects the resolution of failed banks, using a sample of FDIC auctions between 2007 and 2014. We show that bidding banks that lobby regulators have a higher probability of winning an auction. In addition, the FDIC incurs higher costs in such auctions, amounting to 16.4...