BORROWING RELATIONSHIPS,MONITORING, AND THE INFLUENCE ON LOAN RATES

While monitoring borrowers, a bank obtains private information about its customers, giving the bank an informational advantage in the production of subsequent services. Competing theories exist on the way banks use this advantage in the pricing of subsequent services to the customer. If moral hazard limits the transfer of private information, the borrowing relationship transforms into an informational monopoly and can be characterized as a “wasting asset.” Alternately, if the banks' competitive environment necessitates that cost economies are shared, the relationship has “value.” Ordering pairs of successive loans made to a particular borrower as prior loans and subsequent loans, and controlling for environmental, borrower, and loan characteristics, we show that the subsequent loan is priced significantly lower than the prior loan.