The Effect of Bank Mergers on Loan Prices: Evidence from the United States
利用美国商业银行的专有贷款数据，研究发现银行合并平均降低了贷款利差，且当合并后成本节约增加时降幅更大；市场重叠程度与利差呈非单调关系，对小企业影响显著。
Bank mergers can increase or decrease loan spreads, depending on whether the increased market power outweighs efficiency gains. Using proprietary loan-level data for U.S. commercial banks, I find that, on average, mergers reduce loan spreads, with the magnitude of the reduction being larger when postmerger cost savings increase. My results suggest that the relation between spreads and the extent of the market overlap between merging banks is nonmonotonic. The market overlap increases cost savings and consequently lowers spreads, but when the overlap is sufficiently large, spreads increase, potentially due to the market-power effect dominating the cost savings. Furthermore, the average reduction in spreads is significant for small businesses. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.