Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
This paper seeks to identify the characteristics that make individual U.S. banks more likely to fail or be acquired. We use bank-specific information to estimate competing-risks hazard models with time-varying covariates. We use alternative measures of productive efficiency to proxy management quality, and find that inefficiency increases the risk of failure while reducing the probability of a bank's being acquired. Finally, we show that the closer to insolvency a bank is (as reflected by a low equity-to-assets ratio) the more likely is its acquisition. © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology