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Financial statements not required

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  • Minnis, Michael
  • Sutherland, Andrew G.
  • Vetter, Felix W.

Abstract

Using a dataset covering 3 million commercial borrower financial statements, we document a substantial, nearly monotonic decline in banks’ use of attested financial statements (AFS) in lending over the past two decades. Two market forces help explain this trend. First, technological advances provide lenders with access to a growing array of borrower information sources that can substitute for AFS. Second, banks are increasingly competing with nonbank lenders that rely less on AFS in screening and monitoring. Our results illustrate how technology adoption and changes in credit market structure can render AFS less efficient than alternative information sources for screening and monitoring.

Suggested Citation

  • Minnis, Michael & Sutherland, Andrew G. & Vetter, Felix W., 2024. "Financial statements not required," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:78:y:2024:i:2:s0165410124000624
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2024.101732
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    Cited by:

    1. Kang, Jung Koo, 2024. "Gone with the big data: Institutional lender demand for private information," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2).
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    3. Darmouni, Olivier & Sutherland, Andrew, 2024. "Investment when new capital is hard to find," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    4. Demerjian, Peter, 2024. "Financial statements vs. FinTech: A discussion of Minnis, Sutherland, and Vetter," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Banks; Lending standards; Financial statements; Auditing; Private firms; SME lending; Nonbank lending; Fintech;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • M42 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Auditing
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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