The Efficiency of FDIC-Identified Community Banks
92 Pages Posted: 1 Apr 2020 Last revised: 2 May 2022
Date Written: April 30, 2021
Abstract
The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) recently redrew its criteria to identify community banks by including location and business strategy. We analyze the resultant re-classification of community banks and show it affects a wide array of salient outcomes. The thus-defined community banks are one-fifth more cost-efficient than other banks. Most of this efficiency advantage finds its origin in market structure, regulatory, and business environment factors, with corresponding substantial state-level heterogeneity. Community banks fare especially better when competing with large non-community banks and where financial access is limited.
Keywords: Bank business model, Community banks, Liquidity creation, Persistent efficiency, Residual efficiency, Stochastic Frontier Analysis
JEL Classification: G14, G21, G38
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