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Agricultural banks likely respond differently to economic downturns compared to nonagricultural banks. Limited previous research has examined the performance of agricultural banks under economic crisis and in the presence of banking regulations. This study aims to explore agricultural banks' responses to economic and regulation shocks relative to nonagricultural banks.

This study uses bank-quarter level data from 2002 to 2022 for virtually all commercial banks in the U.S. In this research, the Z-score measures the bank’s default risk, the return on assets measures bank profitability and changes in amount of farm loans indicate the wider impact on the agricultural sector. Effects of the financial crisis, Basel III reforms to banking regulation and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on these banking measures are assessed using distinct empirical frameworks. The empirical estimations use various subsamples based on bank types, bank sizes and time periods.

Economic downturns are associated with fluctuations in returns and the risk of default of commercial banks. Agricultural banks appeared to be more resilient to economic downturns than nonagricultural banks. However, Basel III regulated agricultural banks were more likely to fail amidst the pandemic-related economic shocks than the regulated non-agricultural banks.

This study examines the resiliency of agricultural banks during economic downturns and under postfinancial crisis regulation. This is one of the first empirical works to analyze the effectiveness of Basel III regulation across bank types and sizes considering the COVID-19 pandemic. The key finding suggests that banking regulation should consider not only size heterogeneity but also the heterogeneity in lending portfolios.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of major historical developments in agricultural finance, with particular emphasis on agricultural credit. It reviews the development of Raiffeisen and related banks that emerged in Germany and Europe throughout the nineteenth century and how the cooperative banking system made its way into the banking system of the USA in the early twentieth century. The paper emphasizes the role of the state in the developing of agricultural credit, especially with respect to farm mortgages, securitization, and bond structures.

This paper presents a historical synthesis of historical literature on agricultural credit.

This paper shows the direct linkage between the developments in Raiffeisen credit cooperatives and the Farm Credit System (FCS) and details the emergence of the land banks, farm credit banks, agricultural bonds and the role of joint-stock banks in agricultural credit policy.

In total, 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 1916 Federal Farm Loan Act which set in motion the USs’ first Government Sponsored Enterprise and catalyzed the formation of the FCS as it operates today to provide credit to farmers and rural communities on a cooperative basis. Although there are a few wonderful books written on certain aspects of the FCS the story of how the FCS was initiated and the many struggles it faced up to the 1933 Act has not been told often enough. This paper tells the story of the evolution of agricultural credit that ultimately led to the formation of the FCS.

This study aims to determine the nexus between agricultural production and agricultural loans for the period Q1 2003–Q4 2018 in Turkey.

The authors employ the time-series analyses within the scope of the study. Firstly, they run the Engle–Granger two-step cointegration test and the Toda–Yamamoto causality analysis. They also use the dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) model estimator and estimate the vector autoregression model for predicting the dynamic structure of time series.

The results of time series analyses reveal that the variables are cointegrated and there are causal relationships between agricultural loans and agricultural production. Also, the variance decomposition findings indicate that the effect of agricultural loans provided by development-investment banks and participation banks on agricultural production has increased over the years, and the deposit banks have a high impact on agricultural production. The results of the DOLS model indicate that agricultural loans have a positive effect on agricultural production.

This research is one of the few studies that comprehensively determines the direction of nexus between agricultural production and agricultural loans in Turkey economy. This is the first contribution of the study in the literature. Another contribution of this study is to investigate the nexus between agricultural production and agricultural loans for banking sector groups. Unlike other studies in the literature, this study calculates the variance decomposition by going beyond unit root and cointegration tests. Thus, this study has deep findings.

The number of US commercial banks has declined by about 50% over the last two decades. This change could lead to a potential decline in competition and a potential increase in market power in the agricultural banking market. The focus of this study is to examine whether the risk of failure and the performance of agricultural banks has been affected by bank consolidations.

The impact of bank competition on performance and financial stability of agricultural banks is studied using a Lerner index as a measure of market power. A Z-score is constructed to measure bank stability. Similarly, the return on assets (net income to total assets ratio), return on equity (net income to the total equity ratio), agricultural loan ratio and agricultural loan volume are used as performance measures for agricultural banks. Two-way fixed effect regression models are estimated to measure the impact of competition on financial stability and performance.

Results indicate that bank competition has a U-shaped effect on the probability of default and an inverted U-shaped effect on volume and proportion of agricultural lending. There also exists evidence of a positive but non-linear effect of bank market power on the profitability of agricultural banks.

There is limited literature on the impact of bank competition on financial stability and performance of US agricultural banks. Agricultural banks hold more than 40% of US farm debt. A decrease in the number of banks or the level of competition in agricultural banking may cause an adverse effect on relationship lending. The key findings imply that bank regulatory strategies should focus on enhancing (reducing) competition in more (less) concentrated banking markets to improve the financial health and performance of agricultural banks.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the impact of financial derivatives on profitability in agricultural banks. Agricultural banks are new to the derivatives market and are unlikely to use financial derivatives for risk speculation. Thus, the paper also provides evidence on the effectiveness of financial derivatives as a risk management tool in small commercial banks.

The authors use call report data from Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago for 2006, 2008 and 2010 to estimate an endogenous switching model to evaluate how profitability of derivatives user and non‐user agricultural banks is affected by different risk factors. This approach allows banks' endogenous choices to use financial derivatives to be accounted for, and to build a counterfactual analysis – what user banks' profitability would have been if they did not participate in the derivatives activities.

Results indicate that risk management through financial derivatives in agricultural banks is effective and profitability of derivatives user agricultural banks is less affected by credit risk and interest risk in the sample period. Derivatives' activities have improved agricultural banks' profitability and these impacts were increasing over years. In particular, in 2010 without use of derivatives, user banks would have had one‐third lower profitability.

This research is the first to study the role of derivatives in agricultural banks and also provides empirical evidence on the effectiveness of risk management through financial derivatives in agricultural banks.

This is a comparative study of the nature of operating decisions made by agricultural and non-agricultural banks, affecting their actual growth plans in the years around and during the Great Recession of 2008. The main empirical question is whether banks under greater economic stress shortly before, during, and immediately after the recession made deliberate adjustments in their growth decisions vis-à-vis predetermined sustainable levels.

Higgins' sustainable growth challenge is employed to evaluate banks' growth decisions involving four growth levers (profitability, earnings retention, asset management, and financial leverage). Actual growth trends are related to business growth rates deemed sustainable given available financial capability as prescribed by Higgins' model.

Both banking groups made cautious growth decisions during the sample period. Actual growth rates were below sustainable levels. Agricultural banks registered steadily increasing sustainable growth rates from the pre-recession years until the recovery period, while non-agricultural banks were more constrained to grow given their declining sustainable growth levels. Notably, agricultural banks showed relatively more aggressiveness in raising slightly actual revenue growth to levels much closer to sustainable levels. This could have resulted from their less volatile profit margin trends and usual pressure to maintain acceptable liquidity conditions in order to gain access to external funds.

This study presents an additional application of Higgins' model to agricultural finance. The comparative analysis of banking groups becomes even more relevant these days as recent economic discussions focus on indicators of an imminent recessionary period.

Following the recent global financial crisis, US regulatory agencies issued laws to implement the Basel III accords to ensure the resiliency of the US banking sector. Theories predict that enhanced regulations may alter credit issuance of the regulated banks due to increased capital requirements, but the direction of changes might not be straightforward especially with respect to the agricultural loans. A decrease in credit availability from banks might pose a serious problem for farmers who rely on bank credit especially during economic recessions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this study, the impact of Basel III regulatory framework implementation on agricultural lending in the USA is examined. Using panel data of FDIC-insured banks from 2008 to 2017, the agricultural loan volume and growth rates are examined for agricultural banks and all US banks.

The results show that agricultural loan growth rates have slowed down, but the amount of agricultural loan volume issuance still remained positive. More detailed examination finds that regulated agricultural banks have decreased both the agricultural loan volume and their loan exposure to the agricultural sector, showing a possible sign of credit crunch.

This study examines whether the implementation of the Basel III regulation has resulted in changes in agricultural loan issuance by US banks as predicted by the lending channel theory.

The cost of agricultural loans is a major constraint to the growth of the agriculture sector. This paper examines agricultural loan pricing by banks in Ghana using panel data analysis.

Data were obtained from audited financial reports of 15 agricultural loan lending banks from 2010 to 2017. The study applies the random-effect model and the fixed-effect model in the analysis and uses the system generalized system method of moment to check the robustness of the results from the baseline models.

The study found that agricultural loan pricing by banks is significantly influenced by risk premium, cost of funds, loan impairment, agricultural growth rate and food inflation. Banks should leverage emerging technologies to de-risk agriculture loan pricing to allay the fear of default. Farmers should look for long-term and relatively cheaper funds to support agricultural loans. Increasing credit to the agricultural sector could increase output, thereby reducing food inflation uncertainty for competitive pricing of agricultural loans.

Agriculture employs about 52% of Ghana's labor force, contributing about 20% to GDP. But it is “under” financed. This study leads the way in unraveling the factors accounting for the high prices of agricultural loans in Ghana. This study further contributes to policy development toward increasing credit to the agricultural sector.

The paper aims to examine the level of agricultural credit by commercial banks and the determinants that influence the commercial banks to the increased level of agricultural credit through the pressures of the institutional environment.

The study selects seventeen sample commercial banks following the market capitalization method and investigates a total of 85 annual reports during the period from 2013 to 2017. The study conducts a pooled regression to conclude the proposed hypotheses.

The present study finding indicates that the average of agricultural credits to total credits is 2.25% among the sample commercial banks. The study finds a positive significant association between board gender diversity, foreign director, management team and agricultural credit. Furthermore, the study has found that the role of the deposit in enhancing agricultural credit is positive. On the other hand, the association between independent directors, profitability and agricultural credits is negative.

The study is based on secondary data with five firm-year observations of commercial banks. The study finding is based on commercial banks, so it should not be generalized to non-bank financial institutions.

The study emphasizes policymakers’ attention towards the level of agricultural credit and determinants that influence the level of agricultural credit by commercial banks in emerging markets.

The key contribution of the study is to focus on the reformist role of the determinants in promoting the increased level of agricultural credit in the emerging markets.

Agricultural credit markets are dominated by two institutional retail lender groups, the cooperative Farm Credit System (FCS) and commercial banks. Analysis of farm loans made over the 1991S1993 and 2001S2002 periods indicates that FCS lenders were more likely to serve full‐time commercial farmers and farmers located in regions with less competitive credit markets. In contrast, commercial banks were more likely to serve small, part‐time, and hobby farmers. This segmentation of farm credit markets is consistent with federal regulations requiring the FCS to provide credit to “bona fide” farmers with a basis for credit.