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Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 84 2024

The impact of bank mergers on corporate tax aggressiveness

Jie Chen1; Tapas Mishra2; Wei Song3; Qingjing Zhang2; Zhuang Zhang2

1 University of Leeds · 2 University of Southampton · 3 University of Nottingham

open access

Abstract

We study whether borrowers' opaque practices, such as tax aggressiveness, are affected by their lenders' engagement in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Our findings suggest that borrowers' tax aggressiveness is negatively associated with bank mergers as banks increasingly rely on hard information in monitoring and lending practices following mergers. This relationship is more pronounced for borrowers that are more opaque in their information environments and have a greater need for credit, and when banks that have a greater intention to monitor borrowers and rely more on soft-information-based monitoring prior to the mergers. Our study contributes to the growing literature on whether and how bank consolidations affect borrowers' decision making.

DOI
10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102540
Volume
84
Pages
102540
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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