on a number of factors, including the size of the merging banks, whether the acquirer is focused on small business lending, and the response of other local banks to the merger. 6 studies have also shown that the post - merger bank tends to be healthier than the target institution was before the merger, which could to lead to an increase in the availability of credit in the community. 7 the bottom line is that some studies find small business lending goes up after mergers, and others find it goes down. given the wide range of results, this is another topic where policymakers and the public would benefit from further research and analysis. one very clear trend in the united states is a decline in the number of bank headquarters. acquisitions have resulted in the conversion of many bank headquarters into new branches of the acquiring institution. unfortunately, some evidence suggests that these conversions may adversely affect the local communities that are no longer home to a headquarters. the impacts extend well beyond the availability of credit. bank executives and staff who serve on the local chamber of commerce or on the boards of local hospitals or nonprofits may move to the new headquarters location, creating a leadership void in their old hometown. unfortunately, community involvement like this is difficult to measure. we turned to community reinvestment act ( cra ) performance evaluations in the hope that for example, see berger and others ( 1998 ), peek and rosengren ( 1998 ), and avery and samolyk ( 2004 ). see jagtiani, kotliar, and maingi ( 2016 ). - 10 they would offer some insights into local involvement by banks. because certain institutions are subject to community development tests, their performance evaluations include information on the bank ’ s qualifying loans, investments ( including donations ) and services, grants, and certain community service activities. 8 comparing performance evaluations from cra exam reports before and after an acquisition can provide some limited, case - specific evidence on the potential consequences of the loss of a bank headquarters. several examples from the past decade show that local donations and community service activity decline in communities that lost a bank headquarters following a merger. pre - merger cra evaluations detailed donations to organizations targeting initiatives such as child care, job training, homeless shelters, and scholarship programs for low - and moderate - income ( lmi ) individuals. other notable activities included in - kind donations of real estate to habitat for humanity and monetary contributions to food pantries, meals on wheels, and big brothers big sisters of america

for release on delivery 9 : 20 a. m. edt ( 1 : 20 p. m. local time ) may 24, 2024 some thoughts on r * : why did it fall and will it rise? remarks by christopher waller member board of governors of the federal reserve system at the reykjavik economic conference reykjavik, iceland may 24, 2024 thank you for the invitation to be here and speak to you today. 1 i want to step away from shorter - term questions about the economic outlook and monetary policy to delve into a subject of longer - term significance — r *. while there are many concepts of r *, i interpret it to be the real policy interest rate that is neither stimulating nor restricting economic activity with inflation anchored at the central bank ’ s inflation target. in the short term, policymakers must judge whether a given policy setting is restrictive or otherwise, and while this judgment is made with some idea of r *, a number of factors can influence the economy in the near term so that the current setting of policy usually differs from the value of r *. at the same time, policymakers continually update their view of the appropriate value of r *. recently, for example, discussions have focused on whether or not r * has risen, which has important implications for the conduct of monetary policy. for the purposes of this discussion, i am going to be talking about the long - run, real value of r *, when inflation and employment have reached the federal open market committee ’ s ( fomc ) goals. because of that, an estimate of r * points toward where monetary policy is headed over the longer run. this is important for policymakers deciding the best way to get there and also for investors and other members of the public who make decisions in the near term based on their expectations of future economic conditions. much has been written on this topic, and different methods have been developed to estimate r *. my goal today is not to debate which statistical estimate of r * is best but rather describe what i believe are the economic factors behind the secular behavior of r *. the views expressed here are my own and are not necessarily those of my colleagues on the federal open market committee. - 2in particular, i want to address two questions. first, what drove the decline in r * over the past 40 years? second, what are the factors that may cause it to rise? i am certain some of you will disagree with my answers to these two questions, but that