By Wu Qing　

Date: 2002/08/09

Abstract:　　

Over the last 20 years of the last century, the numbers of the US banks and banking organizations declined by 40% and 45% respectively, leading to the concentration of the banking industry at the national level. But at the regional level, the change in terms of banking industry concentration was not big. The enormous change in the US banking structure was caused by mergers of banks. And the banking merger wave that lasted 20 years was caused by the deregulation in the banking industry.