The effects of bank mergers and acquisitions on small business lending1The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Board of Governors or its staff. The authors thank an anonymous referee and Bill Schwert (the editor) for valuable guidance and suggestions, Gary Gorton, Randy Kroszner, and Raghu Rajan for very useful discussants' comments, Jim Burke, Ed Ettin, Jim Kolari, Myron Kwast, Steve Pilloff, Steve Rhoades, Phil Strahan, and participants at the ASSA meetings, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Bank Structure and Competition conference, SBA conference on bank consolidation, and Federal Reserve Bank of New York seminar series for their useful insights, and Seth Bonime and Margaret Kyle for their valuable research assistance.1