Loan Composition Model

In this sub-section, we explore whether the degree of reliance on non-interest income activities has any significant effect on the composition of the loan portfolio. Table IV illustrates the regression results of estimating the Loan Composition model (Equation (3)) using fixed effects and quarterly data on 4,092 Non-Micro Community Banks and 3,294 Micro Community Banks.

Table IV. Loan Composition Model

This table reports estimations of the Loan Composition model (Equation (3)) using quarterly data of 4,092 Non-Micro Community Banks and 3,294 Micro Community Banks during the pre, acute and post-crisis periods. Non-Micro Community Banks are defined as community banks with total assets above $100 million, whereas Micro Community Banks are banks with less than $100 million in total assets.

We use the share of loans not secured by real estate in total loans portfolio (Unsecured Loans) as the proxy and regress it on Fiduciary Activities, Life Insurance, Other Insurance Services, Loan Servicing, Annuity Sales, Securities Brokerage and Investment Banking scaled by total operating income, while controlling for capital and liabilities structures (i.e. Core Deposits and Capital), other bank-level heterogeneities (i.e. Size and Log(Age)) and finally macroeconomics, state-level and year fixed effect controls, i.e. Interest Rate, Home Price Growth, Income Growth and year dummies.

In columns (1) to (3), we study the relationship between Unsecured Loans and our variables of interest using Non-Micro Community Banks sample in the pre, acute and post-crisis periods. Columns (4) to (6) display our analysis for Micro Community Banks during the same study periods. We exclude Annuity Sales, Securities Brokerage and Investment Banking from our pre-crisis period analysis due to lack of sufficient observations. We also keep out the Interest Rate from our model, due to its high correlation with Income Growth in the acute-crisis period.

We estimate our model using fixed effect technique. All the right-hand-side variables are lagged for one quarter. Year dummies are included in the model, but not reported in the table. Robust z-statistics are reported in parentheses. ***, ** and * indicate significance at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively. See Table A2 for variable definitions.

Non-Micro Community Banks Micro Community Banks

Pre-Crisis Acute-Crisis Post-Crisis Pre-Crisis Acute-Crisis Post-Crisis

Variables (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Observations 55,947 20,483 21,006 45,014 12,283 11,119

R-squared 0.030 0.010 0.009 0.026 0.019 0.006

Number of Banks 4,092 3,742 3,789 3,294 2,275 2,046

We study Non-Micro Community Banks in columns (1) to (3) for the pre, acute and post-crisis periods, respectively. Column (1) shows that an increase in the income share of Fiduciary Activities in total net operating income increases the share of Unsecured Loans in

total loans. The results are not only statistically significant but also economically meaningful. A one percent increase, evaluated at the mean, in income share of Fiduciary Activities, increases the weight of Unsecured Loans by 0.221%. The effect equals to an increase of 1.82% in the average share of Unsecured Loans in total loans. In the second column, the positive association of Fiduciary Activities and Unsecured Loans turns into negative at the ten percent significance level. We observe no significant links between any other component of non-interest income and the share of Unsecured Loans in total loans during the acute-crisis period. The result for the post-crisis period presented in column (3) displays a positive correlation between the income share of Other Insurance Services in total net operating income and the weight of Unsecured Loans in total loans. Economically, a one percent increase, evaluated at the mean, in the income share of Other Insurance Services increases the share of Unsecured loans by 0.095%. The magnitude equals to 0.76% of the average share of Unsecured Loans in total loans. Annuity Sales also displays a positive linkage with Unsecured Loans at the ten percent significance level. A one standard deviation increase in the income share of Annuity Sales increases the weight of Unsecured Loans in total loans by 0.027%, which is equal to 0.21% of the average share of Unsecured Loans in total loans.

The results for the control variables show no significant relationship between the share of Core Deposits in total assets and the share of Unsecured Loans in total loans. Unsecured Loans have a greater weight in total loans of more capitalized banks during the pre and post-crisis periods. An increase in Size or Age of banks is associated with an increase in the share of Unsecured Loans in total loans. Higher Interest Rate is negatively correlated with the share of Unsecured Loans in total loans. Home Price Growth depicts little linkage with the share of Unsecured Loans in total loans in the pre and post-crisis periods and appears with a positive coefficient during the acute-crisis period only at the ten percent significance level. Income

Growth is positively correlated with the weight of Unsecured Loans in total loans during the pre and acute-crisis periods.

Columns (4) to (6) exhibit the estimation results for Micro Community Banks during the three study periods. The results provide little evidence of a significant relationship between the income share of non-interest income activities in total net operating income and the weight of Unsecured Loans in total loans in pre, acute and post-crisis periods.

We also observe that in spite of our findings for Non-Micro Community Banks, an increase in Size of Micro Community Banks lowers the share of Unsecured Loans in total loans, during pre and acute-crisis periods. Moreover before the crisis, an increase in Interest Rate is associated with a lower share of Unsecured Loans in total loans which is in contrast with our results for Non-Micro Community Banks.

4.4. FURTHER ISSUES