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The Merger Movement in Banking, 1919–1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Eugene Nelson White
Eugene Nelson White
Affiliation:
The author is Assistant Professor of Economics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903.
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Abstract

The merger movement between the First World War and the Great Depression played an important role in the evolution of the American banking industry. The first complete statistical series on mergers is presented and the factors that contributed to the merger are analyzed.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 285 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1985

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References

1 Willis, Henry Parker, “Hearings on the Consolidation of National Banking Associations,” Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 69th Congress, first session, p. 106 and Federal Reserve Board, Annual Reports (Washington, D.C., various years).Google Scholar

2 Calculated using data on total bank assets from the U. S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975), p. 1021, Series X 589.Google Scholar

3 Eis, Carl, “The 1919–1930 Merger Movement in American Industry,” Journal of Law and Economics, 12 (10 1969), pp. 271–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1919), p. 97.Google Scholar

5 U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, Consolidations of the National Banks under the Act of November 7, 1918 and State Banks with National Banks under the Act of February 25, 1927 (Washington, D.C., 1928), pp. 2–4.Google Scholar

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9 Tedrow, C. D., “Consolidate and Survive, American Bankers Association Journal, 40 (02 1930), p. 748.Google Scholar

10 The common stock index is from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,Banking and Monetary Statistics, 1914–1941 (Washington, D.C., 1943), pp. 480–81; and the bank suspensions are from the Federal Reserve Bulletin (September 1937), p. 907.Google Scholar

11 When more sophisticated tests, including Sims' tests, were used, no obvious leads or lags appeared, leaving support for the hypothesis that industrial growth spawned banking mergers rather weak.Google Scholar