Banks are usually better informed on the loans they originate than outside investors. As a result, securitized loans might be of lower credit quality than -- otherwise similar -- non-securitized loans. We assess the effect of securitization activity on credit quality employing a uniquely...

We find that stricter merger control legislation increases abnormal announcement returns of targets in bank mergers by 7 percentage points. Analyzing potential explanations for this result, we document an increase in the pre-merger profitability of targets, a decrease in the size of acquirers...