Abstract
This study examines the firm size distribution of US banks and credit unions. A truncated lognormal distribution describes the size distribution, measured using assets data, of a large population of small, community-based commercial banks. The size distribution of a smaller but increasingly dominant cohort of large banks, which operate a high-volume low-cost retail banking model, exhibits power-law behaviour. There is a progressive increase in skewness over time, and Zipf’s Law is rejected as a descriptor of the size distribution in the upper tail. By contrast, the asset size distribution of the population of credit unions conforms closely to the lognormal distribution.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 139-156 |
Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | International Journal of the Economics of Business |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 6 Feb 2014 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Bibliographical note
The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of two anonymous referees on an earlier draft of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.Keywords
- Firm Size distribution
- Zipf's Law
- Gibrat's Law
- Banks
- Credit Unions