Political borders and bank lending in post-crisis America

Matthieu Chavaz and Andrew Rose

No 629, Bank of England working papers from Bank of England

Abstract: We use spatial discontinuities associated with congressional district borders to identify the effect of political influences on American banks’ lending. We show that recipients of the 2008 public capital injection program (TARP) increased mortgage and small business lending by 23% to 60% more in areas located inside their home-representative’s district than elsewhere. The impact is stronger if the representative supported the TARP in Congress, was subsequently re-elected, and received more political contributions from the financial industry. Together, these results suggest that political considerations influence credit allocation in a politically mature system like the United States without the formal possibility of political interference in lending decisions, and that this influence is larger if the flows between banks and politicians are reciprocal.

Keywords: Empirical; data; panel; fixed; effect; county; district; congress; policy; mortgage. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F36 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2016-12-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Political Borders and Bank Lending in Post-Crisis America (2019)
Working Paper: Political Borders and Bank Lending in Post-Crisis America (2016)
Working Paper: Political Borders and Bank Lending in Post-Crisis America (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boe:boeewp:0629

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