The Shadow Cost of Collateral
利用美国小企业管理局灾难贷款计划中贷款规模低于门槛可免抵押品的规则，发现企业为规避抵押成本而将贷款集中在门槛以下，从而量化了抵押品的隐性成本，对理解企业借贷约束和灾难贷款设计有启示。
Abstract We quantify the cost of pledging collateral for small businesses by exploiting a regulatory quirk of the SBA disaster lending program in which firms are exempt from posting collateral if their loan size is below a threshold. Firms bunch their loans below the threshold, and the resultant distortion in the loan size distribution reveals the magnitude of the collateral cost. The collateral cost is substantial and varies across collateral types, business sectors, and collateral laws in ways consistent with flexibility-based theories. Our findings have implications for firms’ borrowing constraints and disaster lending program designs.