The banking industry has undergone substantial consolidation during the last 15 years, and that process has accelerated in the 1990s. One effect of this consolidation has been to greatly reduce the number of independent and locally owned banks. Some banks have been acquired by distant banking organizations, and some have been acquired by banking companies that were nearby but very large, causing the banks to become junior partners in the new organization.> Since independent and locally owned banks have been important sources of funds for local businesses and farmers, concern has arisen that such borrowers will now find it harder to obtain credit. In principle, the extra safety and liquidity that newly acquired banks enjoy from belonging to a larger, more diversified banking organization could enable the banks to lend more to local farms and businesses. But some analysts worry that banks acquired by large or distant organizations will lend less to local borrowers because the parent company cannot make credit decisions as efficiently or has other preferred uses for the banks' funds.> Is this concern warranted? Keeton finds that recent bank mergers in Tenth District states provide partial support for the claim that banks acquired by large or distant organizations reduce lending to local farms and businesses.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in its journal Economic Review.
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)