Em busca de uma teoria da localização das agências bancárias: algumas evidências do caso brasileiro

The aim of this piece is to identify the variables that explain the locational decision of a retail bank. The paper’s motivation is the acknowledgment of the necessity of to retake the discussion about the role of money, financial system and monetary policy on the development of regions, due both to the observation of empirical data that shows a huge diversity - economical and institutional - among regions and their financial systems, and to the believe that money can affect, in a permanent way, real variables in a capitalist society. In this sense, this paper should to the viewed as another steep in this direction, focusing on the discussion of one aspect of the role of financial system on regional development. No references directed related with the issue of the locational decision of a retail bank have been found in the literature. So, with the help of the locational theory of the industry that exists on the regional economic literature, some inferences about the spatial distribution of bank branches in Brazil are made. The result of the research shows that the general level of nominal GDP, its spatial and personal distribution, are the variables that can explain, in a great degree, the localization of bank branches in Brazil. Moreover, the outcomes also show that de distribution of the population among the country is not a good explanation for this issue.