When there is asymmetric information between investors and firms, credit availability is affected by the value of collateralized productive assets. If liquidation occurs, investors recover a greater value the higher the probability to find a buyer and the higher his willingness to pay to use the...

We propose a new test to evaluate the impact of horizontal mergers on competition in the banking industry. The test is designed to be applied ex-ante to potential mergers while being parsimonious in terms of data, as it only uses information on branches in local markets. The test is a...