. We investigate theoretically and empirically how bank organization shapes banking competition. Our theoretical model …Recent theoretical models argue that a bank’s organizational structure reflects its lending technology. A … hierarchically organized bank will employ mainly hard information, whereas a decentralized bank will rely more on soft information …

competition on bank orientation - i.e., the choice of relationship based versus transactional banking - and bank industry … specialization. We empirically investigate the impact of interbank competition on bank branch orientation and specialization. We … bank branches facing stiff local competition engage considerably more in relationship-based lending and specialize somewhat …