Modern trade theory emphasizes firm-level productivity differentials to explain the cross-border activities of non-financial firms. This study tests whether a productivity pecking order also determines international banking activities. Using a novel dataset that contains all German banks'...

We analyze the microeconomic determinants of cross-border bank acquisitions in 16 transition economies over the period 1996-2006. By using a latent class discrete choice model we explicitly incorporate the macroeconomic and institutional heterogeneity of the transition economies into our...