We examine the effect of the allocation of decision rights on loan outcomes using proprietary data from a bank. Given that loan officers accumulate soft, nonverifiable information about borrowers through repeated interactions over time, our bank grants decision rights on some loans to loan officers. For larger and risky loans, the bank centralizes decision rights to assure that those loans are diversified across industries. When loans require approval from higher-level officers, loan officers must communicate their accumulated information with higher-level officers. Given that loan officers are incentivized to make loans irrespective of who has the discretion to grant the loan, internal disclosure of soft information appears to come at a cost. Relative to loans where loan officers have discretion, loans that require approval from higher hierarchical levels feature: (1) greater discounts on standard loan rates, and (2) a greater likelihood of a loan quality downgrade in the period following approval. Our evidence suggests that the incentive for loan officers to make loans, in combination with the necessity for higher ranked-officers to rely on soft information in their loan decisions, creates conditions in which information reported by loan officers may become optimistically biased.

我们使用银行的专有数据检查了决策权分配对贷款结果的影响。鉴于信贷员通过不断的互动积累了关于借款人的软性，不可验证的信息，我们的银行将某些贷款的决策权授予了信贷员。对于较大风险的贷款，银行将决策权集中化，以确保这些贷款在各行各业之间是多样化的。当贷款需要上级官员的批准时，贷款人员必须与上级官员沟通其积累的信息。鉴于激励了贷款官员以发放贷款，而不论谁有酌情权授予贷款，软信息的内部披露似乎是有代价的。相对于贷款人员酌情决定的贷款，需要获得更高层级批准的贷款具有以下特点：（1）标准贷款利率的折扣更大；（2）在批准后的一段时间内，贷款质量下降的可能性更大。我们的证据表明，激励信贷员进行贷款的动机，再加上更高级别的高级官员在其贷款决策中依赖于软信息的必要性，会创造条件，使信贷员报告的信息可能变得乐观。