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Mergers, Branch Consolidation and Financial Exclusion in the US Bank Market

We analyze the role of bank mergers as determinants of the evolution of branch presence at the county level. Panel regressions based on county-level branch density are used to study differences across urban versus rural counties as well as pre- and post-crisis. The results indicate that bank mergers contributed to the increase of branches in the pre-crisis period and to its reduction in the post-crisis period, but the expansion effect of the mergers before the crisis mainly took place in metropolitan counties. Additional results show that broadband penetration has contributed to the reduction in the number of branches after the crisis and that branch closures are associated with an increase in the share of unbanked and underbanked households at the county level.