Branching Out: Capital Mobility and Long-Run Growth
We study the long-run effects of the first wave of U.S. banking market integration on capital mobility and manufacturing productivity. Using newly digitized bank and branch balance sheet data matched to state and county panels, we provide direct evidence that branching produced lasting productivity gains without aggregate capital deepening by leveraging internal capital markets to improve the geographic allocation of capital. Our novel ``deposit market access'' measure shows that bank funding grew most in capital-constrained counties within branching states. Both market access and border discontinuity designs indicate that branching’s organizational structure reduced capital allocation frictions to generate persistent growth.
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Copy CitationSarah Quincy and Chenzi Xu, "Branching Out: Capital Mobility and Long-Run Growth," NBER Working Paper 34457 (2025), https://doi.org/10.3386/w34457.Download Citation
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