This study reports that small business loans advanced by cooperative lenders have a significantly lower probability of default than those disbursed by mainstream banks—at least for the first four years post disbursement, during which default costs are highest. Default rates are particularly low among loans to younger, and, to an extent, smaller, firms; and loans to firms that had experienced significant changes in their business environment post-disbursement. These results are consistent with the argument that cooperatives face relatively less severe information asymmetry because their close community ties facilitate soft information production and their governance structures embed self-selection and peer monitoring mechanisms (e.g., Angelini, Di Salvo & Ferri, 1998). Comparison of loan portfolio performance between co-ops and small regional banks suggest that both close community ties and governance structure contribute to cooperatives’ lower default rates. Results are robust to distance and competition effects, and to various alternative explanations.

这项研究报告说，合作银行提供的小企业贷款的违约概率要比主流银行的违约概率低得多-至少在发放后的前四年中，违约成本最高。在向年轻的公司（一定程度上是较小的公司）的贷款中，违约率特别低。支付给在付款后业务环境发生重大变化的公司的贷款。这些结果与这样的论点是一致的，即合作社面临相对不那么严重的信息不对称，因为它们紧密的社区联系促进了软信息的产生，并且其治理结构嵌入了自我选择和同伴监督机制（例如，Angelini，Di Salvo＆Ferri，1998）。合作社与区域性小型银行之间贷款组合绩效的比较表明，紧密的社区联系和治理结构都有助于降低合作社的违约率。结果对距离和竞争影响以及各种替代解释均具有鲁棒性。