Borrower versus bank channels in lending: experimental- and administrative-based evidence

Abstract

We identify the relative importance for bank lending of borrower (demand-side) versus bank (supply-side) factors. We submit thousands of fictitious mortgage applications, changing one borrower-level factor at time, to the major Italian online mortgage platform. Each application goes to all banks. Borrower and bank factors are equally strong in causing and explaining loan acceptance. For pricing, borrower factors are instead stronger. Moreover, banks supplying less credit accept riskier borrowers. Exploiting the administrative credit register, there is borrower-lender assortative matching, and the bank-level strength measure estimated on the experimental data is associated to credit supply and risk-taking to real firms. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 648398). Peydró also acknowledges financial support from the PGC2018-102133-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) grant and from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (CEX2019-000915-S)