摘要：Rural banks rely primarily on localdeposits for loanable funds, but be-cause reliance on local funds alone cansometimes limit community growth,some rural-headquartered banks areseeking greater access to nonlocalfunds. These banks fear the flow ofdeposits may be disrupted by ongo-ing competitive and demographicchanges, such as easier entry intobanking markets (following, for ex-ample, the lifting of restrictions onbank branching), increased acceptanceof mutual funds and other uninsuredvehicles for household savings, re-duced consumer commitment to localfinancial institutions, and improvedinformation processing and telecom-munications. This report examines thedegree to which nonlocal funds areavailable to rural banks and the con-ditions under which increased accessis most likely to provide public benefits.Since 1978 the share of household fi-nancial assets held in depository in-stitutions (banks, thrifts, and creditunions) has declined from 39 to 17percent. Factors affecting both thesupply of and demand for depositshave contributed to this decline. Thesupply of deposits from householdshas shifted because of changes in thepopulation's age structure, changes inrisk-return preferences, and changesin the costs of financial transactions.In addition, banks in rural countiesthat are losing total population orexperiencing death rates that exceedbirth rates may face a greater shift inthe supply of local deposits thanbanks elsewhere (fig. 1).
