How has the merger activity in the past decade influenced the concentration of assets in the banking industry?
Over the last decade, the number of commercial banks declined through twenty-one percent and the average asset size more than doubled as banks acclimated themselves to deregulation, technological change, and new market pressures. Presently, the fifty largest bank holding companies hold about 84 percent of all commercial bank assets compared to 55 percent in the year of 1990.