Using a sample for 1972-2002 with over 8,000 bank entries into local markets, we find a market share advantage for earlier entrants. In particular, the earlier a bank enters, the larger is its market share relative to other banks, controlling for firm, market and time effects, with a market...

We examine the informational effects of M&As by investigating whether bank mergers improve banks’ abilities to screen their borrowers. By exploiting a dataset in which we observe a measure of a borrower’s default risk which the lenders observe only imperfectly, we find evidence of these...