Data and Code for: Loans for the "Little Fellow:" Credit, Crisis, and Recovery in the Great Depression

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Sarah Quincy, Vanderbilt University

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
citydata			07/29/2024 06:46:PM
gisdata			06/10/2024 11:53:AM
programs			09/16/2024 03:54:PM
rawdata			09/16/2024 03:46:PM
QGIS Distance Calculation Instructions.pdf	application/pdf	307.1 KB	09/16/2024 11:43:AM
QGIS Figure 2 Instructions.pdf	application/pdf	137.9 KB	09/16/2024 11:15:AM
README.pdf	application/pdf	529 KB	09/16/2024 12:14:PM

Project Citation:

Quincy, Sarah. Data and Code for: Loans for the “Little Fellow:” Credit, Crisis, and Recovery in the Great Depression. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-11-07. https://doi.org/10.3886/E199265V1

Project Description

Summary: This paper identifies how bank branching benefited local economies during the Great Depression. Using archival data and narrative evidence, I show how Bank of America’s branch network in 1930s California created an internal capital market that diversified away local liquidity shortfalls, allowing the bank to maintain 49 percent higher credit growth from 1929 to 1933 than competing banks. The bank’s presence mitigated cites' property value contractions and strengthened their recovery through 1940. Linked individual data show that the bank’s proximity to workers hastened the transition from agricultural employment to human-capital-intensive sectors in the 1930s, generating structural change and higher wages.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Great Depression (1929); credit supply; branch banking; structural transformation

JEL Classification:
      E44 Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
      G01 Financial Crises
      G21 Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
      N22 Economic History: Financial Markets and Institutions: U.S.; Canada: 1913-

Geographic Coverage: California

Time Period(s): 1920 – 1940

Universe: These data constitute a longitudinal panel on cities, firms, banking offices, and households in California during the 1920s and 1930s.

Data Type(s): aggregate data; census/enumeration data; geographic information system (GIS) data; observational data

Methodology

Unit(s) of Observation: bank, city, establishment

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Published Versions

V1 [2024-11-07]

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Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

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