Antonio Accetturo, G. Barboni, M. Cascarano, Emilia Garcia-Appendini
{"title":"Cultural Proximity and the Formation of Lending Relationships","authors":"Antonio Accetturo, G. Barboni, M. Cascarano, Emilia Garcia-Appendini","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3882637","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"We use credit registry data from the population of loans granted to firms in a region hosting two different cultural groups to study the role of culture in the formation of lending relationships. We find a large predominance of lending relationships involving banks and firms of the same culture, particularly among small, young, and opaque firms. Loans to same-culture firms are larger, require less collateral, and default less often than loans to different-culture firms. Our results suggest that cultural proximity reduces information asymmetries by providing a source of soft information that complements the one stemming from close or lengthy relationships.","PeriodicalId":331807,"journal":{"name":"Banking & Insurance eJournal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Banking & Insurance eJournal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3882637","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
We use credit registry data from the population of loans granted to firms in a region hosting two different cultural groups to study the role of culture in the formation of lending relationships. We find a large predominance of lending relationships involving banks and firms of the same culture, particularly among small, young, and opaque firms. Loans to same-culture firms are larger, require less collateral, and default less often than loans to different-culture firms. Our results suggest that cultural proximity reduces information asymmetries by providing a source of soft information that complements the one stemming from close or lengthy relationships.