Communication within Banking Organizations and Small Business Lending

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Levine, Ross; Lin, Chen; Peng, Qilin; Xie, Wensi
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of Hong Kong; Chinese University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0893-9454
• DOI: 10.1093/rfs/hhaa036
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 5750
• 关键词: Adverse selection; INFORMATION; credit; firm; COMPETITION; distance; benefits

摘要

We investigate how communication within banks affects small business lending. Using travel times between a bank's headquarters and its branches to proxy for the costs of communicating soft information, we exploit shocks to these travel times-the introduction of new airline routes-to evaluate the impact of within-bank communication costs on small business loans. We find that reducing headquarters-branch travel time boosts small business lending in the branch's county. Several extensions suggest that new airline routes facilitate in-person communications that boost small-firm lending.