A proposed bank merger and acquisition (M&A) provides a unique opportunity to address too big to fail concerns—the problem of big banks taking undue risks due to creditors’ perceptions that government policymakers will bail them out to prevent spillovers from bank collapse. Under a...

Mergers of community banks across economic market areas potentially reduce both idiosyncratic and local market risk. A merger may reduce idiosyncratic risk because the larger post-merger bank has a larger customer base. Negative credit and liquidity shocks from individual customers would have...

The number of U.S. commercial banks has declined by some 40 percent since 1984, primarily through mergers of solvent institutions. The relaxation of legal impediments to branching has enabled this consolidation, but specific characteristics of banks that engage in mergers reflect the regulatory...

This paper documents global trends in bank activity, consolidation, internationalization, and financial firm conglomeration, and explores the extent to which financial firm risk and systemic risk potential in banking are related to consolidation and conglomeration. We find that while there is a...

This paper reviews the nature of central bank involvement in 26 episodes of financial disturbance and crises in Latin America from the mid-1990s onwards. It finds that, except in a handful of cases, large amounts of central bank money were used to cope with large and small crises alike. Pouring...

This paper estimates the value of the too-big-to-fail (TBTF) subsidy. Using data from the merger boom of 1991-2004, the authors find that banking organizations were willing to pay an added premium for mergers that would put them over the asset sizes that are commonly viewed as the thresholds for...

This paper analyzes the relation between bank mergers and changes in the concentration and efficiency of the Venezuelan Banking System during the period 1998-2005. Efficiency was estimated through a stochastic cost frontier model. The concentration was measured by deposits and considering the...

We identify 72 bank Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As), in which US banks acquired other financial institutions. We focus on the role of timing at M&A in the context of boom phase and financial crisis. Applying event study methodology, we examine: value generation to bank shareholders; value...

In this paper I revisit the debate on the impact of bank and market characteristics on the rigidity of retail bank interest rates. Whereas existing research in this area has been exclusively concerned with static measures of bank and market structure, I adopt a dynamic approach which explores...

This study, based on Indian banking mergers, examines the impact of mergers on both the stock market wealth creation and operating performance. The study also analyses the performance of the merged banks in relation to a control group based on financial ratios. The results of cumulative abnormal...