Youth, Adolescence, and Maturity of Banks: Credit Availability to Small Business in an Era of Banking Consolidation

Abstract

This paper address the relationship between the aging process at new and relatively young banks and the tendency of banks to make loans to small businesses. Defining small business loans as C&I loans that are under $1 million in size, we analyze a sample of banks that had assets of less than %500 million in assets for the years 1993-1996 and that were 25 years of age or younger.