Search

The first part of my thesis concerns credit information production of lenders. In a multi-period partial equilibrium model of lending to private households I compare arm’s-length lending with relationship lending that is based on information production about borrowers in preceding saving relationships. These are often the only source of private information that lenders possess about loan demanding households. The model shows that savings-linked relationship lending leads to a Pareto improvement or an increasing allocative efficiency of the financing market compared to arm’s-length lending in markets of low time preference or low average borrower quality. In these markets, savings-linked relationship lending can overcome financing market failure due to adverse selection, especially for financing volumes that are large in comparison to households’ periodic savings or incomes. Thus, the model shows that savings-linked relationship lending is particularly well suited and economically beneficial for housing finance of private households and is able to increase home ownership rates. Competitive savings-linked relationship lending, as derived in the model, shares major characteristics with contractual saving for housing which is a widespread and important product of housing finance in Continental Europe. My model therefore provides, to my knowledge, the first theoretical relationship lending explanation for contractual saving for housing. Further, my results add a novel economic explanation for synergies between the two main activities of traditional commercial banking, deposit-taking and lending. The second part of my thesis concerns credit information sharing between lenders. Credit information sharing between lenders can have a disciplinary effect on borrowers because defaulting with one lender ruins the reputation with every other lender (Vercammen, 1995; Padilla and Pagano, 2000). This reputation effect, however, diminishes and finally disappears the more comprehensiv, Der erste Teil der Arbeit betrachtet die Informationsproduktion von Kreditgebern über private Haushalte. In einem Mehrperiodenmodell vergleiche ich Arm’s-length-Kredite mit Relationship-Krediten, die auf Informationsproduktion über Kreditnehmer in vorangehenden Sparbeziehungen basieren. Das Modell zeigt, dass dieses sparbasierte Relationship Lending verglichen mit Arm’s-length-Krediten in Märkten mit niedriger Zeitpräferenz oder niedriger durchschnittlicher Schuldnerqualität zu einer Pareto-Verbesserung oder einer steigenden allokativen Effizienz des Finanzmarkts führt. In solchen Märkten kann sparbasiertes Relationship Lending Marktversagen aufgrund von adverser Selektion verhindern, insbesondere für Kreditvolumina, die hoch in Relation zum periodischen Einkommen/Sparen der Haushalte sind. Das Modell zeigt folglich, dass sparbasiertes Relationship Lending besonders für die Wohnungsfinanzierung von Haushalten geeignet und ökonomisch vorteilhaft ist und zudem steigende Wohneigentumsquoten bedingt. Das im Modell abgeleitete sparbasierte Relationship Lending teilt wesentliche Charakteristika mit Bausparen, das in Kontinentaleuropa ein weitverbreitetes und wichtiges Produkt der Wohnungsfinanzierung ist. Folglich bietet mein Modell meines Wissens die erste theoretische Relationship-Lending-Erklärung für Bausparen. Ferner fügen meine Ergebnisse eine neue ökonomische Erklärung für Synergien zwischen dem Einlagen- und dem Kreditgeschäft, den zwei Hauptaktivitäten des traditionellen Bankgeschäfts, hinzu. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit betrachtet den Austausch von Kreditinformationen zwischen Kreditgebern. Dieser Informationsaustausch kann einen disziplinierenden Effekt auf Kreditnehmer haben, weil diese ihre Reputation bei allen Kreditgebern ruinieren, wenn sie bei einem ausfallen (Vercammen, 1995; Padilla und Pagano, 2000). Dieser Reputationseffekt schwindet allerdings und verschwindet schließlich, je umfassender die Kreditregister werden. Ich zeige in einem Mehrperiodenmodell

The German financial market is often characterized as a bank-based system with strong bank-customer relationships. The corresponding notion of a housebank is closely related to the theoretical idea of relationship lending. It is the objective of this paper to provide a direct comparison between housebanks and "normal" banks as to their credit policy. Therefore, we analyze a new data set, representing a random sample of borrowers drawn from the credit portfolios of five leading German banks over a period of five years. We use credit-file data rather than industry survey data and, thus, focus the analysis on information that is directly related to actual credit decisions. In particular, we use bank-internal borrower rating data to evaluate borrower quality, and the bank's own assessment of its housebank status to control for information-intensive relationships.

The German financial market is often characterized as a bank-based system with strong bank-customer relationships. The corresponding notion of a housebank is closely related to the theoretical idea of relationship lending. It is the objective of this paper to provide a direct comparison between housebanks and "normal" banks as to their credit policy. Therefore, we analyze a new data set, representing a random sample of borrowers drawn from the credit portfolios of five leading German banks over a period of five years. We use credit-file data rather than industry survey data and, thus, focus the analysis on information that is directly related to actual credit decisions. In particular, we use bank-internal borrower rating data to evaluate borrower quality, and the bank's own assessment of its housebank status to control for information-intensive relationships.