Financial exclusion and branch closures in Spain after the Great Recession

The paper analyzes the factors behind the changes in spatial accessibility to services due to the closure of bank branches during the Great Recession. It uses data on the geolocations of Spanish branches in 2007 and 2014 and finds that the distance between branches increases because of (1) the contraction in the demand for bank services and (2) the transformation of not-for-profit cajas into for-profit banks that caused them to abandon their social mission of contributing to financial inclusion. The results highlight the heterogeneity in the accessibility to bank services across locations and population segments and the need for policies targeting financial inclusion.