We investigate how communication within banks affects small-business lending. Using travel time between a bank's headquarters and its branches to proxy for the costs of communicating soft information, we exploit shocks to these travel times to evaluate the impact of within bank communication...

We investigate whether and how financial constraints of private firms depend on bank lending behavior. Bank lending behavior, especially its scale, scope and timing, is largely driven by bank business models which differ between privately owned and state-owned banks. Using a unique dataset on...

Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. Banks have been concerned about the uneven playing field because fintech lenders are not subject to the same rigorous oversight. There have also been concerns about the use of alternative data sources by...

This paper reviews peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, its development in the UK and other countries, and assesses the business and economic policy issues surrounding this new form of intermediation. P2P platform technology allows direct matching of borrowers and lenders diversification over a large...

Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. Banks have been concerned about the uneven playing field because fintech lenders are not subject to the same rigorous oversight. There have also been concerns about the use of alternative data sources by...

Small business lending (SBL) plays an important role in funding productive investment and fostering local economic growth. Recently, nonbank lenders have gained market share in the SBL market in the United States, especially relative to community banks. Among nonbanks, fintech lenders have...

Supersedes Working Paper 17-17 Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. In this paper, we use account-level data from LendingClub and Y-14M data reported by U.S. banks with assets over $50 billion to examine whether the fintech lending platform...

Supersedes Working Paper 17-17. Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. There have been concerns about the use of alternative data sources by fintech lenders and the impact on financial inclusion. We compare loans made by a large fintech lender...

The role of the banking industry in export promotion cannot be over-emphasized as banks provide the necessary financial support for borrowers in various industries to undertake investment activities. With the help of an industry-level dataset on bilateral trade flows between various countries, I...

We investigate the relative performance of publicly traded community banks (those with assets less than $10 billion) versus larger banks (those with assets between $10 billion and $50 billion). A body of research has shown that community banks have potential advantages in relationship lending...