Distance, Bank Organizational Structure and Credit

We survey the extant literature on the effects of both a bank’s organizational structure and the physical distance separating it from the lender on lending decisions. Banks do engage in spatial pricing, where the underlying mechanism can be both transportation costs and information asymmetries. Moreover, their ability to discriminate is bounded by the reach of the lending technology of surrounding competitors. It is not entirely clear from an empirical viewpoint that small, decentralized banks have a comparative advantage in relationship lending. Differences in data and methodology may explain these mixed findings. If it does exist, this advantage can be motivated theoretically by the existence of agency and communication costs within a bank.