We propose a new test to evaluate the impact of horizontal mergers on competition in the banking industry. The test is designed to be applied ex-ante to potential mergers while being parsimonious in terms of data, as it only uses information on branches in local markets. The test is a...

This paper analyses the relation between competition and concentration in the banking sector. The empirical answer is given by testing a monopolistic competition model of bank branching behaviour on individual bank data at county level (départements and provinces) in France and Italy. We...