Banks’ loan growth, loan quality, and social capital

Using a sample of public and private banks in the U.S. and two measures of social capital, we study how social capital relates to banks’ loan expansion strategies and loan quality. A higher loan growth rate in the banking industry usually implies lower loan standards and a higher percentage of future nonperforming loans. We find that social capital is negatively associated with banks’ loan expansion strategy (proxied by banks’ loan growth). We …