Person:

Scherer, Frederic

This paper, written for a Columbia Law School - American Bar Association conference, analyzes the massive merger wave that has led to substantially increased concentration of banking activity in the United States. One consequence is the rise of banks "too big to fail." The structural changes have also been associated with a striking increase in financial institutions' share of all U.S. corporate profits along with employee compensation out of line with norms for individuals of comparable ability. Data on concentration in well-defined banking markets are quite scarce, but fragmentary evidence suggests appreciable monopoly pricing power potential in some product markets. Mergers that lead to concentration have for decades been the focus of antitrust activity. But a review of the record shows an emphasis on mergers that raise local banking market concentration and nearly total neglect of other important lines, on which data are lacking. If antitrust actions were to be taken against the concentration of power in those lines, offsetting advantages in the form of realized scale economies would have to be weighed. A review of the most recent evidence suggests that difficult tradeoffs might be confronted.

This paper, written for a conference at the Fordham University Law School, examines various facets of the “too big to fail” debate. It notes that in the current context, “too big to fail” may imply systemic risks from large financial institution size, compensating economies of scale, political power, and (within narrower markets) power to set prices above competitive levels. It examines three stylized facts: the contours of the recent merger wave among financial institutions, the concomitant increase in the concentration of financial institution assets, and the impressive rise in financial institutions’ profits as a share of all U.S. corporate profits,. It argues that rising aggregate concentration of financial institutions’ assets may imply rise in the power to set above-competitive prices in individual relevant banking markets – i.e., in segments of what economists call “product characteristics space.” There is not much solid economic evidence on this last conjecture for investment banking firms, but supporting evidence from the large number of studies focusing on commercial banks is marshaled. The evidence on economies of scale is also imperfect, but it implies that breakup of the largest banks need not cause great efficiency losses.