The impact of large lending on bank efficiency in U.S.A.

This paper investigates a rather neglected issue in the banking literature regarding the impact of large lending (LL) on the three banks’ performance aspects (cost, profit and productive). Possible influences may arise in the context of banks’ credit risk as trade credit, which is provided by large, creditworthy firms, and it is a method of monitoring and enforcing loan contracts to relatively riskier firms. Indeed, trade credit providers view payments beyond the discount period as a sign of financial difficulty while the option to cut off shipments for nonpayment is a potentially powerful means for a trade creditor to force repayment, especially if a supplier provides its costumer with a product that has no close substitutes. A unique dataset was constructed concerning all USA banks collected from SDI (Statistics on Depository Institutions) report compiled by FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). Our sample contains 7960 banks and tracked yearly for the period 2010 -2017, creating an unbalanced panel of year observations. An econometric framework based on nested non-neutral frontiers, was developed to estimate the influence and the decomposition of large lending on the three banks' performance aspects (cost, profit and productive). Moreover, different types of frontiers aiming at the cost, profit, and production side have been investigated. The empirical findings reveal that the large lending plays a crucial role on banks' technical efficiency. Significant variations among different frontier models, type of bank and size, banks’ ownership structure and macroeconomic conditions appear to be present. By considering all CAMEL (Capital Adequacy Asset Quality Management Earnings Liquidity) parameters we notice that banks’ financial strength affects banks’ efficiency. Some policy implications are derived based on the empirical evidence supporting a safer and sounder banking system can be emerged as banks finance large firms, increasing the willingness of people to save and bank’s attitude to finance ...