The U.S. banking sector has become substantially more concentrated since the 1990s, raising questions about both the causes and implications of this consolidation. We address these questions using nonparametric empirical methods that characterize dynamic power law distributions in terms of two...

U.S. banking assets have become substantially more concentrated within a few large institutions. However, decreasing relative rates of big-bank growth and of idiosyncratic volatility—an indicator of individual bank susceptibility to shocks and a resulting redistribution of assets—suggest a...