Working Paper: NBER ID: w26183
Authors: Stefan Gissler; Rodney Ramcharan; Edison Yu
Abstract: This paper finds that banks and non-banks respond differently to increased competition in consumer credit markets. Increased competition and the greater threat of failure induces banks to specialize more in relationship business lending, and surviving banks are more profitable. However, non-banks change their credit policy when faced with more competition and expand credit to riskier borrowers at the extensive margin, resulting in higher default rates. These results show how the effects of competition depend on the form of intermediation. They also suggest that increased competition can cause credit risk to migrate outside the traditional supervisory umbrella.
Keywords: competition; consumer credit; credit unions; banking; lending practices
JEL Codes: D12; G21; G23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| increased competition from low-income CUs (F65) | reallocation of credit (E51) |
| increased competition (L13) | higher default rates among nonbanks (G21) |
| increased competition from low-income CUs (F65) | banks reduce lending (G21) |
| increased competition from low-income CUs (F65) | nonbanks increase lending (G21) |