We analyze how the structure of executive compensation affects the risk choices made by bank CEOs. For a sample of acquiring US banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to show that CEOs with higher pay-risk sensitivity engage in risk-inducing mergers. Our findings are driven by two...

Advocates of diversifying bank income sources often argue that diversification improves the resilience of banks during periods of distress. To test this proposition, we analyze the impact of income diversification on the performance of Italian banks during the recent financial crisis. Using...

This paper studies the impact of European bank mergers and acquisitions on changes in key safety and soundness measures of both acquirers and targets. We find that capitalization, profitability and liquidity show signs of statistically and economically significant mean reversion for acquirers....

This paper studies the impact of European bank mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on changes in key safety and soundness measures of both targets and acquirers.Our focus is on the short term impact after completion of the deal. We find a consistent, strong tendency towards post-merger mean reversion...