urban growth. Our estimates suggest that the presence of a bank at a given location in the late 1830s is associated with …

York adopted free banking, which transformed bank formation from legislative prerogative to administrative procedure. This … distaste for spoils-driven patronage generated pressure to expand access to bank finance, especially among entrepreneurs in …

supporting the shareholder-as-customer model. Bank values responded positively to the presence of large-block individual … concerned with dividend returns than access). Moreover, firm value declined as directors consumed larger fractions of a bank …'s loans, which reduced the bank's ability to extend credit to other shareholders …

. Second, did diffuse ownership systematically alter bank risk taking? It did. Banks with less concentrated ownership followed …