Are Credit Markets Still Local? Evidence from Bank Branch Closings†
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2019, 11(1): 1–32 https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20170543 Are Credit Markets Still Local? Evidence from Bank Branch Closings† By Hoai-Luu Q. Nguyen* This paper studies whether distance shapes credit allocation by esti- mating the impact of bank branch closings during the 2000s on local access to credit. To generate plausibly exogenous variation in the incidence of closings, I use an instrument based on within-county, tract-level variation in exposure to post-merger branch consolida- tion. Closings lead to a persistent decline in local small business lending. Annual originations fall by $453,000 after a closing, off a baseline of $4.7 million, and remain depressed for up to six years. The effects are very localized, dissipating within six miles, and are especially severe during the financial crisis. JEL G21, G34, L22, R12, R32 ( ) tretching back to Marshall 1890 , a rich literature studies how distance shapes ( ) investment Helpman 1984, Brainard 1997 , trade Tinbergen 1962; Krugman S ( ) ( 1991a; Helpman, Melitz, and Rubinstein 2008 , and economic activity more gen- ) erally Krugman 1991b, Glaeser et al. 1992 . Indeed, the fundamental driver of ( ) agglomeration economies is the idea that geographic proximity reduces the costs of transferring labor, goods, and importantly, information Duranton and Puga 2004 . ( ) Over the last few decades, however, technological changes have dramatically low- ered the costs of transmitting and processing information. This raises the question of whether distance still matters for informationally intensive activities. The banking sector is a natural environment for assessing this question since an extensive body of research holds that informational asymmetries are central to credit allocation e.g., Akerlof 1970 and Stiglitz and Weiss 1981 and information technol- ( ) ogies have had an especially pronounced impact there.
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