Exploring the role of social proximity in bank lending using a proprietary data set, we uncover evidence of a significant social proximity effect on private information acquisition. Local loan officers have better information to identify higher-quality borrowers through improved screening. This advantage is greater when firms have higher information asymmetry and lower ratings. Results suggest that sociocultural resources drive locals’ informational advantages and improve their lending performance. Importantly, we find that the social proximity advantage interacts with loan officer incentives. Strong evidence suggests that loan officers can be incentivized to use their social proximity advantage to make better loans. (JEL G12, G13) Received: August 17, 2020; Editorial decision: May 3, 2021 Editor: Isil Erel Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

中文翻译：

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地方银行贷款中的社会接近度、信息和激励措施

通过使用专有数据集探索社会邻近度在银行贷款中的作用，我们发现了社会邻近度对私人信息获取的显着影响的证据。地方信贷员拥有更好的信息，可以通过改进筛选来识别更高质量的借款人。当公司具有较高的信息不对称性和较低的评级时，这种优势会更大。结果表明，社会文化资源推动了当地人的信息优势并提高了他们的贷款绩效。重要的是，我们发现社会邻近优势与信贷员激励相互作用。强有力的证据表明，可以激励信贷员利用他们的社会邻近优势来提供更好的贷款。(JEL G12, G13) 收稿日期：2020年8月17日；编辑决定：2021 年 5 月 3 日编辑：