Some have suggested that weaknesses in bank corporate governance played a prominent role in the recent financial crisis, most notably through poorly designed executive compensation packages and from various aspects of the public safety net that may have blunted the normal forces of market...

We test whether rural versus urban location, and the amount of social capital present in those locations, influence the performance of Small Business Administration (SBA) 7(a) loans originated between 1984 and 2012. On average, we find that rural loans are about 11% less likely to default than...