Published in:Banks, Local Credit Markets and Credit Supply Conference, p. 175, 2010
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource (17 p)
Language:
English
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.2123321
Identifier:
Origination:
Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments March 24, 2010 erstellt
Description:
Using a unique dataset based on the Bank of Italy's organizational survey, we find that – after having controlled for bank size – loan officers' authority has a key role in explaining bank specialization in small business lending. In particular, banks that delegate more decision-making power to their loan officers are more willing to lend to small firms than other banks. We use several proxies for measuring loan officers' authority: loan officers' discretion in loan approval and in setting interest rates, the amount of money up to which they are allowed to lend autonomously, their turnover, their compensation schemes, and the kind of information (soft versus hard information) used both for screening and monitoring purposes