Recent banking theory holds that durable firm-bank relationships are valuable to both parties. Using contract-specific loan records of a nineteenth-century U.S. bank, this paper shows that firms that form extended relationships with banks receive three principal benefits. First, firms with...

Share prices of modern corporations are influenced by the size and structure of boards of directors, large individual and institutional investors, and shareholder voting rights, among other governance features. It is not clear whether the same features mattered historically, given recent...