Proposed structural changes in banking institutions, i.e., deregulation and interstate branching, could have a potentially great impact on local economic development in rural communities. This paper attempts to identify these potential impacts by looking at the decision-making processes of unit bank presidents and branch bank presidents. The lexicographic ordering technique is contrasted with a Bernoullian approach to eliciting preference orderings of decisionmakers. The lexicographic ordering technique is used to determine differences in the goal hierarchies elicited from unit bank versus branch bank presidents. The technique is then analyzed to determine how well it describes actual portfolio behavior.