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Why do Banks Disappear? The Determinants of U.S. Bank Failures and Acquisitions

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  • David C. Wheelock
  • Paul W. Wilson

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify the characteristics that make individual U.S. banks more likely to fail or be acquired. We use bank-specific information to estimate competing-risks hazard models with time-varying covariates. We use alternative measures of productive efficiency to proxy management quality, and find that inefficiency increases the risk of failure while reducing the probability of a bank's being acquired. Finally, we show that the closer to insolvency a bank is (as reflected by a low equity-to-assets ratio) the more likely is its acquisition. © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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  • David C. Wheelock & Paul W. Wilson, 2000. "Why do Banks Disappear? The Determinants of U.S. Bank Failures and Acquisitions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 127-138, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:82:y:2000:i:1:p:127-138
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