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Discussion Paper
Same Name, New Businesses: Evolution in the Bank Holding Company
When we think of banks, we typically have in mind our local bank branch that stores deposits and issues mortgages or business loans. Prima facie there is nothing wrong with this image. After all, there are still almost 6,000 unique commercial banks in the United States that specialize in deposit-taking and loan-making; when we include thrifts and credit unions, this number more than doubles. What we typically forget, however, is that most commercial banks are subsidiaries of larger bank holding companies (BHCs), and in fact nearly all commercial bank assets fall under such BHCs. This post ...
Report
Transformation of corporate scope in U.S. banks: patterns and performance implications
Using a novel database containing the time-series details of the organizational structure of individual bank holding companies, this paper presents the first population-wide study of the transformation in business scope of U.S. banks. Expanding scope has a negative impact on performance on average. However, we find that firms whose expansion keeps them closer to the prevailing ?modal bank? are better off compared with those pursuing generic diversification. Moreover, we find that early expanders into particular activities benefit more, whereas late adopters, rather than benefitting by ...
Report
Mapping a Sector’s Scope Transformation and the Value of Following the Evolving Core
A surprisingly neglected facet of sector evolution is the evolutionary analysis of firms’, and thus a sector’s, scope. Defining a sector as a group of firms that can change their scope over time, we study the transformation of U.S. banking firms. We undertake a sectoral, population-wide study of business-scope transformation, with particular focus on which segments banks expand into. As financial intermediation evolved, a continuously shifting set of activities became associated with “core banking,” with scope changing and relatedness itself (measured through coincidence) evolving ...
Discussion Paper
Going with the Flow: Changes in Banks’ Business Model and Performance Implications
Does the performance of banks improve or worsen when banks enter into new business activities? And does it matter which activities a bank expands into, or retreats from, and when that decision is made? These important questions have remained unaddressed due to a lack of data. In a recent publication, we used a unique data set detailing the organizational structure of the entire population of U.S. bank holding companies (BHCs). In this post, we draw on that research to show that while scope expansion on average hurts performance, entering into activities that are highly synergistic with core ...