Tacit Collusion among Dominant Banks: Evidence from Round-Yard Loan Pricing

While there is no apparent reason for loan spreads to cluster at certain numbers, we find that around 70% of loans have round-yard spreads (i.e., multiples of 25 basis points). We hypothesize that dominant banks implicitly collude by using the round-yards as focal pricing points when negotiating with their borrowers. The tacit collusion leads to higher spreads and total costs of the round-yard-priced loans than non-round-yard-priced loans. Consistent with our tacit collusion hypothesis, dominant banks round up rather than round down loan spreads to the multiples of yards. Moreover, round-yard pricing is more prevalent among lower-quality and non-repeat borrowers. Overall, we provide the first evidence that dominant banks use round-yard pricing as an effective tool for tacit collusion in the loan market.