IT有帮助吗？银行业和创业中的信息技术

Does IT help? Information technologyin banking and entrepreneurship Toni Ahnert, Sebastian Doerr, Nicola Pierri,Yannick Timmer Disclaimer:This paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank(ECB). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB. Abstract Westudytheimportanceofinformationtechnology(IT)inbankingforentrepreneurship.Guidedbyaparsimoniousmodel,weestablishthatjobcreationbyyoungfirmsisstrongerinUScountiesmoreexposedtobankswithgreaterITadoption.Wepresentevidenceconsistentwithbanks’ITadoptionspurringentrepreneurshipthroughacollateralchan-nel:entrepreneurshipincreasesbymoreinIT-exposedcountieswhenhousepricesrise.FurtheranalysissuggeststhatITimprovesbanks’abilitytodeterminecollateralvalues,inparticularwhencollateralappraisalismorecomplex.ITalsoreducesthetimeandcostofdisbursingcollateralizedloans. JELclassification:D82,G21,L26. Keywords:technologyinbanking,entrepreneurship,informationtechnology,collateral,screening. Non-technical summary Focus Information technology (IT) has dramatically changed how information is used in thefinancial sector. This may affect the supply of credit from banks, as a key function ofbanks is to screen and monitor borrowers.Lending to opaque borrowers, such asyoung firms and start-ups, is likely to be especially sensitive to such changes in IT.Thereason is that young firms have not yet produced sufficient quantitativeinformation, such as balance sheet data. Instead, lenders rely on soft information. Asstart-ups contribute disproportionately to job creation and productivity, but are oftenfinancially constrained, understanding how the IT revolution in banking has affectedstart-ups' access to finance is of paramount importance. Yet, direct evidence for theimpact of lenders' IT capabilities on entrepreneurship is scarce. Contribution First, our paper relates to the literature investigating the effects of IT in the financialsector on credit provision and small businesses. Second, we speak to papers thatanalyse the importance of collateral for entrepreneurial activity. We provide firstevidence that banks' IT adoption increases the importance of collateral in banks'financing of young firms. Third, we contribute to the recent literature that investigateshow the rise of fintech affects credit-scoring and credit supply. An advantage offocusing on the variation in IT adoption among banks is that our results are unlikely tobe explained by regulatory arbitrage, which has been shown to be an important driverof the growth of fintechs. Findings We build a model in which banks can screen firms either by acquiring informationabout firms and their projects or by requiring collateral. Crucially, IT makes it cheaperfor banks to analyse hard information and thus rely on collateralised lending. Thisbenefits start-ups, as they have not yet produced sufficient information and have to bescreened through the use of collateral. The model thus predicts that IT in banking willspur entrepreneurship–and the more so when collateral value rises. Consistent withthe model's implications, we find that job creation by start-ups is stronger in UScounties with IT-intensive banks, especially during periods of rising collateral values. 1Introduction The rise of information technology (IT) in the financial sector has dramatically changedhow information is gathered, processed, and analyzed (e.g. Vives 2019). This developmenthas important implications for credit supply, as one of banks’ key functions is to screenand monitor borrowers. Financing for young firms is likely to be especially sensitive tosuch changes in lenders’ technology. They have produced limited information availableto lenders and often rely on banks as a source of funding (Robb and Robinson, 2014;Babina, 2020). This paper studies how the rise of IT in the financial sector affects entrepreneurship.Our empirical analysis is guided by a set of hypotheses derived from a parsimoniousmodel in which banks’ screening strategy depends on their level of IT adoption. We firstestablish that US counties in which more IT-intensive banks operate experience more jobcreation by startups. Guided by the model’s predictions, we then present evidence consis-tent with banks’ IT adoption facilitating entrepreneurship through a collateral channel:the presence of IT-intensive banks strengthens the responsiveness of job creation by en-trepreneurs to changes in local real estate values. This pattern is especially pronouncedin industries that rely more on real estate collateral and in markets where evaluatingcollateral is more difficult. Further analysis suggests that IT adoption also reduces thecost and time of disbursing collateralized loans. We measure IT adoption at the bank-branch level as the ratio of PCs per employee,following seminal papers on IT adoption among non-financial firms (Bresnahan et al.,2002; Brynjolfsson and Hitt, 2003; Beaudry et al., 2010; Bloom et al., 2012). T