Does the recent proliferation of technology in lending process have an impact on business loan market competition? Using a theoretical model that assumes heterogeneity in lenders’ screening abilities and borrowers’ investment horizons, we show that FinTech (Traditional) lenders primarily supply unsecured (asset-backed) loans to borrowers with short-term (long-term) projects. The model builds on the interplay between screening ability and collateral requirements to characterize the competition between two ex-ante symmetric lenders. Lenders use screening technology and collateral requirements to mitigate competition and restrict the supply of credit through an endogenous segmentation of the loan market. As information technology improves, the effect on credit supply and equilibrium interest rates becomes more nuanced and depends on the market segment. The results offer a supply-side explanation for the growth of unsecured lending.

Recent studies have presented evidence of scale economies for large banks, providing a rationale for some very large banks seen worldwide. In this study, we focus on the negative side of bank size which relates to monitoring costs. In particular, we show that the relationship between size and bank's market to book value of assets is contained by the cost of the manager to directly monitor the borrowers and by the (delegation) cost of the owner to monitor the bank manager. Using a sample of US bank holding companies from 2001 to 2015, we provide evidence that the relationship between size and bank's market to book value of assets is inverse U-shaped and that monitoring costs offset the benefits from economies of scale.

We investigate the effect of competition on price dispersion in the airline industry. Using panel data from 1993 to 2008, we find a nonmonotonic effect of competition on price dispersion. An increase in competition is associated with greater price dispersion in concentrated markets but with less price dispersion in competitive markets—an inverse-U relationship. Our empirical findings are consistent with an oligopolistic second-degree price discrimination model and encompass contradictory findings in the literature.