This study analyzes how two information technology advancements, the adoption of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), and social media, affect bank loan contracting using a sample of 554 US bank loan contracts in 2011. I hypothesize that the adoption of XBRL and social media can enhance information dissemination and mitigate the information asymmetry problem between borrowers and lenders. Consistent with this hypothesize, I find that borrowers that adopt XBRL and/or receive positive social media user opinion in social media enjoy more favorable price and non-price terms of bank loan contracts. Additional analyses indicate that the relations among XBRL adoption, social media user opinion and bank loan price vary with the firm size, loan structure and availability of public information of borrowers. Overall, this research provides evidence that technology advancements, the adoption of XRBL and social media, reduce cost of bank loans by decreasing information asymmetry between borrowers and lenders
