The Competitive Dynamics of Geographic Deregulation in Banking: Implications for Productive Efficiency
研究银行业地理限制放松后，面对新进入者，未合并的本地银行如何通过提高成本效率来应对竞争，指出仅评估合并银行效率会忽略合并活动最重要的福利提升方面。
Deregulation of geographic restrictions in banking over the past 20 years has intensified both potential and actual competition in the industry. The accumulating empirical evidence suggests that potential efficiency gains associated with consolidating banks are often not realized. We evaluate the impact of this increased competition on the productive efficiency of non‐merging banks confronted with new entry in their local markets and find that the incumbent banks respond by improving cost efficiency. Thus, studies evaluating the impact of bank mergers on the efficiency of the combining parties alone may be overlooking the most significant welfare‐enhancing aspect of merger activity.