This paper examines operating performance around commercial bank mergers. We find that industry-adjusted operating performance of merged banks increases significantly after the merger, large bank mergers produce greater performance gains than small bank mergers, activity focusing mergers produce...

In this paper, we look at how the pre-crisis health of banks is related to the probability of receiving and repaying TARP capital. We find that financial performance characteristics that are related to the probability of receiving TARP funds differ for the healthiest (“over-achiever”) versus...

We show that a pattern of earnings management in bank financial statements has little bearing on downside risk during quiet periods, but seems to have a big impact during a financial crisis. Banks demonstrating more aggressive earnings management prior to 2007 exhibit substantially higher stock...