IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11351.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monopoly-Creating Bank Consolidation? The Merger of Fleet and BankBoston

Author

Listed:
  • Charles W. Calomiris
  • Thanavut Pornrojnangkool

Abstract

The merger of Fleet and BankBoston in September 1999 resulted in a regional New England lending market in which only one large, universal bank remained. We explore the extent to which that merger resulted in monopoly rents for the combined entity in some niches within the regional loan market. For small- and medium-sized middle-market borrowers, prior to the merger, Fleet and BankBoston charged unusually low loan interest rates, reflecting their ability to realize economies of scope and scale. After the merger, those cost savings were no longer passed on to medium-sized middle-market borrowers, which resulted in an increase in the average interest rate credit spreads to those borrowers of roughly one percent. Small-sized middle-market borrowers (which continued to enjoy the advantage of loan market competition from remaining small banks) maintained their low spreads. Our results suggest that it may be desirable for regulators to consider the concentration in lending markets in addition to deposit markets when evaluating mergers and structuring appropriate divestiture requirements.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles W. Calomiris & Thanavut Pornrojnangkool, 2005. "Monopoly-Creating Bank Consolidation? The Merger of Fleet and BankBoston," NBER Working Papers 11351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11351
    Note: IO
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11351.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hans Degryse & Steven Ongena, 2005. "Distance, Lending Relationships, and Competition," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 231-266, February.
    2. Beim, D-O, 1996. "The Prime Premium : Is Relationship Banking Too Costly for Some?," Papers 96-22, Columbia - Graduate School of Business.
    3. Hubbard, R. Glenn & Palia, Darius, 1995. "Executive pay and performance Evidence from the U.S. banking industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 105-130, September.
    4. Nicola Cetorelli, 2002. "Entry and competition in highly concentrated banking markets," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 26(Q IV), pages 18-27.
    5. Mitchell A. Petersen & Raghuram G. Rajan, 1995. "The Effect of Credit Market Competition on Lending Relationships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 407-443.
    6. Douglas D. Evanoff & Diana Fortier, 1987. "Reevaluation of the structure-conduct-performance paradigm in banking," Staff Memoranda 87-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    7. Nicola Cetorelli, 2001. "Competition among banks: good or bad?," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 25(Q II), pages 38-48.
    8. Petersen, Mitchell A & Rajan, Raghuram G, 1994. "The Benefits of Lending Relationships: Evidence from Small Business Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-37, March.
    9. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    10. Jith Jayaratne & Philip E. Strahan, 1996. "Entry restrictions, industry evolution and dynamic efficiency: evidence from commercial banking," Research Paper 9630, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    11. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    12. Degryse, H.A. & Ongena, S., 2002. "Distance and competition," Other publications TiSEM 96f9f961-889a-40e3-ac3e-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Flannery, Mark J., 1984. "The social costs of unit banking restrictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 237-249, March.
    14. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra Todd, 1998. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(2), pages 261-294.
    15. David M. Kreps & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1983. "Quantity Precommitment and Bertrand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(2), pages 326-337, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Uchino, Taisuke & Uesugi, Iichiro, 2022. "The effects of a megabank merger on firm-Bank relationships and loan availability☆," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Orley Ashenfelter & Daniel Hosken & Matthew Weinberg, 2014. "Did Robert Bork Understate the Competitive Impact of Mergers? Evidence from Consummated Mergers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(S3), pages 67-100.
    3. Kenneth A. Carow & Edward J. Kane & Rajesh P. Narayanan, 2011. "Safety‐Net Losses from Abandoning Glass–Steagall Restrictions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(7), pages 1371-1398, October.
    4. Charles Calomiris & Thanavut Pornrojnangkool, 2009. "Relationship Banking and the Pricing of Financial Services," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 35(3), pages 189-224, June.
    5. Burietz, A. & Ureche-Rangau, L., 2020. "Better the devil you know: Home and sectoral biases in bank lending," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 69-85.
    6. Pérez Montes, Carlos, 2014. "The effect on competition of banking sector consolidation following the financial crisis of 2008," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 124-136.
    7. Wilson, John O.S. & Casu, Barbara & Girardone, Claudia & Molyneux, Philip, 2010. "Emerging themes in banking: Recent literature and directions for future research," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 153-169.
    8. Erel, Isil, 2007. "The Effect of Bank Mergers on Loan Prices: Evidence from the U.S," Working Paper Series 2006-19, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    9. Yoshiaki Ogura & Hirofumi Uchida, 2014. "Bank Consolidation and Soft Information Acquisition in Small Business Lending," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 173-200, April.
    10. Robert DeYoung & Douglas Evanoff & Philip Molyneux, 2009. "Mergers and Acquisitions of Financial Institutions: A Review of the Post-2000 Literature," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 87-110, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. DeYoung, Robert & Glennon, Dennis & Nigro, Peter, 2008. "Borrower-lender distance, credit scoring, and loan performance: Evidence from informational-opaque small business borrowers," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 113-143, January.
    2. Foroughfard, Rasoul & Rahmati, Mohammad, 2019. "The Effect of Relationship Lending on Loan Contract Terms," Journal of Money and Economy, Monetary and Banking Research Institute, Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vol. 14(2), pages 133-157, April.
    3. Gregory S. Crawford & Nicola Pavanini & Fabiano Schivardi, 2018. "Asymmetric Information and Imperfect Competition in Lending Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(7), pages 1659-1701, July.
    4. Ergungor, O. Emre, 2005. "The profitability of bank-borrower relationships," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 485-512, October.
    5. Ogura, Yoshiaki, 2010. "Interbank competition and information production: Evidence from the interest rate difference," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 279-304, April.
    6. Giannetti, Mariassunta & Ongena, Steven, 2012. "“Lending by example”: Direct and indirect effects of foreign banks in emerging markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 167-180.
    7. Eichengreen, Barry & Kletzer, Kenneth & Mody, Ashoka, 2006. "The IMF in a world of private capital markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1335-1357, May.
    8. Agnes Quisumbing & Neha Kumar, 2011. "Does social capital build women's assets? The long-term impacts of group-based and individual dissemination of agricultural technology in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 220-242.
    9. Simon Cornée, 2014. "Soft Information and Default Prediction in Cooperative and Social Banks," Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, vol. 3(1), pages 89-103, June.
    10. Song Zhang & Liang Han & Konstantinos Kallias & Antonios Kallias, 2021. "The value of in-person banking: evidence from U.S. small businesses," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1393-1435, November.
    11. Kirschenmann, K., 2010. "The Dynamics in Requested and Granted Loan Terms when Bank and Borrower Interact Repeatedly," Other publications TiSEM 40d5005c-1626-4511-aa8a-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Çağatay Bircan & Ralph De Haas, 2020. "The Limits of Lending? Banks and Technology Adoption across Russia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 536-609.
    13. Jarko Fidrmuc & Philipp Schreiber & Martin Siddiqui, 2018. "Intangible Assets and the Determinants of a Single Bank Relation of German SMEs," European Journal of Business Science and Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 5-30.
    14. Hyytinen, Ari, 2003. "Information production and lending market competition," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 233-253.
    15. Hans Degryse & Steven Ongena, 2004. "The Impact of Competition on Bank Orientation and Specialization (new titel: The impact of competition on bank orientation)," CESifo Working Paper Series 1119, CESifo.
    16. Théo Nicolas., 2023. "Bank Market Power and Interest Rate Setting: Why Consolidated Banking Data Matte [Pouvoir de marché des banques et fixation des taux d’intérêt : de l’importance de prendre en compte les données ban," Débats économiques et financiers 40, Banque de France.
    17. Yang, Yong & Driffield, Nigel, 2022. "Leveraging the benefits of location decisions into performance: A global view from matched MNEs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 468-483.
    18. Choudhary, M. Ali & Jain, Anil, 2022. "Finance and inequality: The distributional impacts of bank credit rationing," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    19. Jith Jayaratne & Philip E. Strahan, 1996. "Entry restrictions, industry evolution and dynamic efficiency: evidence from commercial banking," Research Paper 9630, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    20. Spermann, Alexander & Strotmann, Harald, 2005. "The Targeted Negative Income Tax (TNIT) in Germany: Evidence from a Quasi Experiment," ZEW Discussion Papers 05-68, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11351. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.