This paper investigates how a firm's borrowing cost evolves as it ages. Using a new data set of more than 200,000 bank-dependent small firms for 1997-2002, we find the following. First, the distribution of borrowing costs tends to become less skewed to the right over time, which can be partially...

This paper investigates how firms' borrowing costs evolve as they age. Using a new panel data set of about 100,000 bank-dependent small firms for 1997-2002 and focusing on the channel of "adaptation" (i.e., surviving firms' borrowing costs decline as they age) and that of "selection" (i.e.,...

This paper investigates how a firm's borrowing cost evolves as it ages. Using a new data set of more than 200,000 bank-dependent small firms in 1997-2002, we find the following. First, the distribution of borrowing cost tends to become less skewed to the right over time. Second, this shift of...