Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Staff Study 174. Bank Mergersand Banking Structure in the United States, 1980-98

摘要

Since 1980, the U.S. banking industry has experienced a sustained andunprecedented level of merger activity that has substantially affected banking structure. From 1980 through 1998, there were approximately 8,000 mergers, involving about $2.4 trillion in acquired assets. Not only has the number of mergers been large, but from 1990 to 1999 several mergers occurred that, at the time of occurrence, were the largest bank mergers in U.S. history. Mergers in any industry are of interest for various reasons. One important reason, especially from the viewpoint of public policy, is that mergers have the potential to fundamentally restructure an industry such that there are fewer firms and industry output may be increasingly concentrated in a smaller number of larger firms. Such changes in an industry's structure may have significant implications for competition and the economic performance of the industry, including prices, quality of products and services, and efficiency of production. Moreover, once an industry is restructured, the new structure will generally persist for a long time because of first-mover advantages, information asymmetries, switching costs, and other market imperfections that typically exist in real-world markets.