Bank Capital and Loan Monitoring
用四个代理变量衡量银行监控努力，发现银行资本与监控努力正相关，且在小银行和关系型贷款多的银行中更显著，支持高资本银行监控更多的理论预测。
ABSTRACT This paper empirically examines the association between bank capital and banks' monitoring effort. We use four proxies to measure the unobservable monitoring effort. Two of the proxies are based on loan quality (ex post outcomes of monitoring effort). The other two proxies are based on salary expense (ex ante proxies intended to capture the quality and quantity of labor input into monitoring effort). Using a bank and time fixed effects estimation, we find a positive association between bank capital and each of our measures of monitoring effort. We find that this association is more pronounced for smaller banks and banks that engage in higher levels of relationship lending. Numerous additional tests and robustness checks, including matched sample analysis and instrumental variable approach to address endogeneity, confirm our main findings. Overall, our evidence is consistent with the prediction in Mehran and Thakor (2011) that banks that keep higher capital monitor more. JEL Classifications: G21; G32; M41.