Screening, Bidding and the Loan Market

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Abstract
Bank loans are more available and cheaper for new and small businesses in the U.S. in areas with highly concentrated banks than in areas with highly competitive banks. To explain this fact, we analyze banks' decisions to screen the project and their subsequent competition in loan provisions. It is shown that, by increasing a negative informational externality to an informed winner, an increase in the number of banks in the market can reduce banks' screening probability sufficiently, reduce the number of banks that actively compete in loan provisions and increase the expected loan rate. This occurs when the screening cost is not very high, in which case all active bidders are informed. The opposite outcome occurs when the screening cost is high, in which case there are sufficiently many uninformed banks in bidding to attenuate the negative informational externality.

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