But penny-pinching is not enough of a justification for the sort of disruption that comes from merging two drug companies with hundreds of projects and thousands of employees.

ECONOMIST: Drug mergers are all the rage; but few make much sense

As Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, likes to point out, the entire banking system of many an emerging country is no bigger than a typical regional bank in the United States (the sort now considered too small for global financial markets, and merging furiously).

ECONOMIST: It all depends