摘要：The restructuring of commercial banking has heightened interest in its economic conse-quences both for the economy as a whole and for those most likely to bear adverse con-sequences: small businesses, small banks, and rural areas. Most previous research onbank restructuring focuses on changes in bank behavior. In contrast, this paper focuseson the empirical association between local economic performance and changes in localbank market regulation and structure. Findings suggest that mergers or acquisitions oflocal banks by nonlocal banks need not impair local economic growth, and may evenhave beneficial effects in rural markets, with the possible exception of farm-dependentareas. These findings are derived from empirical models that relate both shortrun andlongrun growth in real per capita personal income to geographic restrictions on bankactivity, local bank (deposit) market concentration, local or nonlocal ownership of localbank offices, and local or nonlocal control of local bank deposits.
