Direct and indirect impacts of natural disasters on banks: A spatial framework

We examine the direct and indirect impacts of natural disasters on deposit rates of U.S. bank branches from 2008 to 2017. We capture the indirect impact by the spatial spillover effects of disasters, from branches directly exposed to such disasters to neighboring branches. We theoretically motivate our spatial framework by local competition for deposits among branches and provide empirical evidence consistent with this model. We find that indirect effects contribute to at least two-thirds of the total impact for deposit rate-setting branches. Rate-setting branches in affected counties, on average, raise their deposit rates on 12-month CDs by 1.5 basis points directly due to the disaster shock. However, there is an additional indirect increase of 2.7 – 4.3 basis points for all rate-setting branches, including those in adjacent but unaffected counties, due to the local geographical competition for deposits. We also confirm that the spillover effect occurs among branches across counties via an overlooked social connectedness. Moreover, and importantly, online and one-county banks are more likely to rely on the information channel embedded in the social connectedness effect in response to natural disasters. Branches in less concentrated local markets also respond more to the nature disaster and rate adjustments of neighboring branches.