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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the evidence for credit channel on the composition of corporate finance during tight and loose periods of monetary policy, using micro‐level data on Indian firms for 1995‐2007.Design/methodology/approachUnivariate tests as well as panel regression techniques were employed to examine the response of firms to monetary policy.FindingsThe findings provide evidence in favor of the relationship lending view, although the magnitude and extent of the response varies according to firm characteristics.Practical implicationsThe paper belongs to the strand of literature which examines the impact of monetary policy on corporate behavior, an under‐researched aspect of study in the Indian context.Originality/valueThis paper is believed to be one of the first to examine this issue in a comprehensive fashion in relation to India.

A puzzling but consistent result in the empirical literature on banking is that firms with close bank ties do not grow faster than bank-independent firms. In this paper, we reconsider the link between relationship lending and firms' growth, distinguishing firms by size and 'health'. The idea is that the beneficial effects of relationship lending on information asymmetries can be compensated by other negative capture, risk and externality effects which make relational banks reluctant to support long-term growth projects of client firms, and that the strength of these compensating effects varies with firm size and health status. We explore the influence of long-lasting bank relationships on employment and asset growth of a large sample of Italian firms. The main finding is that relationship lending hampers the efforts of small firms to increase their size, while it mitigates the negative growth of troubled, medium-large enterprises.

This paper studies how credit constraints develop over bank relationships. I analyze a unique dataset of matched loan application and loan contract information and measure credit constraints as the ratio of requested to granted loan amounts. I find that the most important determinants of receiving smaller than requested loan amounts are firm age and size at the time of the first interaction between borrower and bank. Over loan sequences, credit constraints decease most pronouncedly in the beginning of relationships and for the initially young and small firms. Moreover, the structure of the dataset allows me to disentangle the demand and supply effects behind these observed credit constraints. I find that the gap between requested and granted loan amounts decreases because both sides converge. If previous credit constraints were large, requested amounts increase more moderately, while granted amounts increase more strongly than in the case of small previous constraints. The findings are a sign of the use of dynamic incentives at the bank side to overcome information problems when contracting repeatedly with opaque borrowers. The results further suggest that, particularly in the beginning of a bank relationship, borrowers learn from their previous experience with credit constraints and adjust their demand accordingly.

This paper studies how credit constraints develop over bank relationships. I analyze a unique dataset of matched loan application and loan contract information and measure credit constraints as the ratio of requested to granted loan amounts. I find that the most important determinants of receiving smaller than requested loan amounts are firm age and size at the time of the first interaction between borrower and bank. Over loan sequences, credit constraints decease most pronouncedly in the beginning of relationships and for the initially young and small firms. Moreover, the structure of the dataset allows me to disentangle the demand and supply effects behind these observed credit constraints. I find that the gap between requested and granted loan amounts decreases because both sides converge. If previous credit constraints were large, requested amounts increase more moderately, while granted amounts increase more strongly than in the case of small previous constraints. The findings are a sign of the use of dynamic incentives at the bank side to overcome information problems when contracting repeatedly with opaque borrowers. The results further suggest that, particularly in the beginning of a bank relationship, borrowers learn from their previous experience with credit constraints and adjust their demand accordingly.

In this paper we analyze the impact of government and private ownership of banks on firms’ probability to innovate. We estimate firms’ decision to innovate and their selection of a main lender for a sample of 9000 German manufacturing companies. Since these two decisions may be simultaneously made we use the number of private and government bank branches located in close proximity to our sample firms as an instrument for the selection of each firm’s main lender. We find that the probability of a firm to innovate is about 10 to 13 percent higher if the main lender is a private compared to a government bank (after controlling for firm characteristics and selectivity bias). The ownership type of the main lender is especially important for small firms since their access to finance is more dependent on the local supply of lenders. Therefore, extensive government involvement in the allocation of credit comes at the cost of lower corporate innovation and economic growth.

We develop a dynamic credit risk model for the case in which banks compete to collect their loans from a firm in danger of bankruptcy. We apply a game-theoretic real options approach to investigate banks f optimal strategies. Our model reveals that the bank with the larger loan amount, namely, the main bank, provides an additional loan to support the deteriorating firm when the other bank collects its loan. This suggests that there exists rational forbearance lending by the main bank. Comparative statics show that as the liquidation value is lower, the optimal exit timing for the nonmain bank comes at an earlier stage in the business downturn and the optimal liquidation timing by the main bank is delayed further. As the interest rate of the loan is lower, the optimal exit timing for the non-main bank comes earlier. These analyses are consistent with the forbearance lending and exposure concentration of main banks observed in Japan.

We empirically analyze the competition between a relationship lender and a transaction lender in the credit business with micro and small entrepreneurs. Drawing on a data set about the customers of the relationship lender ProCredit Ecuador combined with data about all other loans of these customers in the Ecuadorian banking system, we are able to analyze the competition between different banking types. We find that the quality of ProCredit borrowers who have a trans- action loan as well is below average. They also have higher default probabilities. Furthermore, we find evidence that ProCredit customers with payment problems prefer to serve their relationship loan while defaulting on their transaction loan. These findings suggest that customers of a relationship bank value their banking relationship and try to protect it as long as possible. This result stands in contrast to the common presumption that the market entrance of transaction lenders will destroy the market for lenders applying relationship lending techniques.

L’obiettivo di questo paper è delineare le cause e gli effetti del progressivo passaggio dal transaction banking al relationship lending avvenuto negli ultimi anni nel rapporto tra banche ed imprese italiane ed il ruolo delle informazioni non codificate nelle relazioni creditizie. L’oggetto della ricerca empirica si estende anche allo studio del possibile impatto che l’introduzione dei modelli statistico-quantitativi di Basilea 2 può avere sulla qualità, l’intensità e la frequenza dei rapporti creditizi tra banche ed imprese.

Il contributo si sofferma sulle caratteristiche principali delle banche territoriali nel contesto economico nazionale, evidenziandone i caratteri permanenti ed i fattori di successo. Fra i primi figurano, fra gli altri: la chiusura dei circuiti finanziari impieghi-depositi; l'organizzazione con diffusione a maglie strette; il predominio di rapporti improntati al relationship banking; efficaci politiche di cross selling e cross subsidization; intenso esrecizio della corporate social responsibility. Fra i secondi, sono evidenziati i caratteri che consentono di definire la banca di territorio come "banca di casa". I fattori appena sintetizzati sono stati sottoposti a verifica analizzando le performances delle banche così come risultano dall'analisi dei bilanci in un arco temporale di dieci anni.

We study the economic role of banks’ soft information, which evolved from repeated lending relationships, in the context of loan default. Using a proprietary database from one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in China, we find that the bank’s internal credit rating scores play a significant role in default prediction. While the internal credit rating incorporates firm-specific hard information such as financial ratios, it is the soft information component of these ratings that contributes to the improvement in assessing credit quality. More importantly, the relative importance of soft information over hard information depends on the depth of the lending relationship. When evaluating loan delinquency, a strong lending relationship allows soft information to substitute for, rather than complement to, the role of hard information, especially the hard information that is subject to easy manipulation by Chinese firms.

Relationship banking involves the provision of financial services by an intermediary that a) invests in obtaining customer-specific information, often proprietary in nature; and b) evaluates the profitability of these investments through multiple interactions with the same customer over time and/or across products (Boot, 2000). We assess the presence and impact of relationship banking from an Irish SME perspective.We trace how significant patterns can be seen across several dimensions of the lender/business relationship using data for the year 2005. These dimensions include the duration of lender/business relationships and the cost of finance.

We study the economic role of banks’ soft information, which evolved from repeated lending relationships, in the context of loan default. Using a proprietary database from one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in China, we find that the bank’s internal credit rating scores play a significant role in default prediction. While the internal credit rating incorporates firm-specific hard information such as financial ratios, it is the soft information component of these ratings that contributes to the improvement in assessing credit quality. More importantly, the relative importance of soft information over hard information depends on the depth of the lending relationship. When evaluating loan delinquency, a strong lending relationship allows soft information to substitute for, rather than complement to, the role of hard information, especially the hard information that is subject to easy manipulation by Chinese firms.

The aim of the paper is to identify the different role of financial funds in R&D and physical investments in the Italian firms. The data set used for this study is the Survey of Italian Firms conducted by the SME Observatory run by the Capitalia Research Division. R&D is defined as a creative activity implemented to improve knowledge and its use in new applications. Given its intrinsic characteristics, R&D is usually characterized by high information opacity that, coherently with the theory of asymmetric information, implies more difficulties to find external financial funds. The highest risk to R&D projects could be some forms of financial constraints. However, signalling mechanisms like as self-financing could correct such a market imperfection. The aim of the research is to investigate the determinants of R&D investments financial funds, and the use of internal capital compared to the financial funds. Using different econometric models (Logit, OLS and SUR) we identify significant effects of firm structure on funding decisions. Traditional and R&D investments are simultaneously considered to capture a possible interaction among different self-financing patterns. Our results show how information and agency costs, reflected in the firm characteristics, affect financing decisions in the case of R&D or physical investment. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that, in information opaque firms, internal equity plays an important role in R&D financing decisions. On the opposite, physical investments are less related to self-financing. The overall evidence indicates that banking variables are more relevant to physical investment as well.

In this thesis, we conduct an analysis of potential causes of SME bank financing constraints in relation to the profound changes affecting the organization of the French banking system mainly due to deregulation and ICT advances. Three lines of inquiry have emerged: i) the strengthening, since the early 2000s, of the French banking system supply through the increased diffusion of bank branches is it likely to contribute to the promotion of relationship lending, suited to the particular segment of SMEs? ii) The intense movement of French bank restructuring and ICT progress are they increasing the organizational problems inherent in relationship lending and ultimately worsen SME funding pressures? iii) Relationship lending can be strategically used by banks in order to soften interbank competition, which has continued to grow despite bank mergers? The theoretical modeling and empirical evaluation of these issues conducted on a sample of French SMEs data over the period 2001-2009 show that the diffusion of bank branches has a positive impact on the credit availability whereas the concentration of bank decision making centers is likely to limit the access of SMEs to bank financing. The hypothesis of the strategic adoption of relational financing as a mean of softening interbank competition is also confirmed for the French case.

Il modello di banca universale che si era venuto ad affermare alla fine del processo di consolidamento degli anni ’90 sta per essere inesorabilmente modificato a causa della recente crisi finanziaria. Le ragioni che hanno motivato in passato l’affermarsi del modello della grande banca che operava sul mercato finanziario a “360 gradi” sono in parte le stesse che ne hanno decretato la sua crisi. La rivoluzione delle tecnologie della comunicazione e dell’informazione, hanno favorito l’innovazione finanziaria, la standardizzazione di molti strumenti finanziari, la riduzione dei costi di relazione con la clientela che hanno incoraggiato la competizione e il passaggio dal cosiddetto modello originate to hold a quello to distribute. La presenza sul nostro territorio di molte banche locali, le cui strategie di business sono tipicamente relationship lending piuttosto che transation lending, rappresentano allo stato attuale della crisi una leva sulla base della quale rilanciare lo sviluppo della nostra economia. JEL classification: G21; L16; M41

The evidence suggests that relational contracting and legal rules play an important role in credit markets but on the basis of the prevailing field data it is difficult to pin down their causal impact. Here we show experimentally that relational incentives are a powerful causal determinant for the existence and performance of credit markets. In fact, in the absence of legal enforcement and reputation formation opportunities the credit market breaks down almost completely while if reputation formation is possible a stable credit market emerges even in the absence of legal enforcement of debt repayment. Introducing legal enforcement of repayments causes a further significant increase in credit market trading but has only a surprisingly small impact on overall efficiency. The reason is that legal enforcement of debt repayments weakens relational incentives and exacerbates another moral hazard problem in credit markets the choice of inefficient high-risk projects.

We study the economic role of banks’ soft information, which evolved from repeated lending relationships, in the context of loan default. Using a proprietary database from one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in China, we find that the bank’s internal credit rating scores play a significant role in default prediction. While the internal credit rating incorporates firm-specific hard information such as financial ratios, it is the soft information component of these ratings that contributes to the improvement in assessing credit quality. More importantly, the relative importance of soft information over hard information depends on the depth of the lending relationship. When evaluating loan delinquency, a strong lending relationship allows soft information to substitute for, rather than complement to, the role of hard information, especially the hard information that is subject to easy manipulation by Chinese firms.

This draft: March 2008; First draft: August 2006, This paper investigates the determinants of the use of collateral and personal guarantees in, Japan's SME loan market. We find that firms' riskiness does not have a significant effect on the, likelihood that collateral is used. We find, however, that main banks whose claims are collateralized, monitor borrowers more intensively, and that borrowers who have a long-term relationship with, their main banks are more likely to pledge collateral. These findings are consistent with the theory, that the use of collateral is effective in raising the bank's seniority and enhances its screening and, monitoring. This incentive effect for the bank becomes tenuous for personal guarantees., 科学研究費補助金（特別推進研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research

The improvement of financial intermediation functions is crucial for a robust banking system. When lending, banks have to cope with such problems as information asymmetry and adverse selection. In order to mitigate these problems, banks have to product information and improve their techniques of lending. During the 1998 financial crisis, Indonesia's banking system suffered severe damage and revealed that the country's banking intermediation functions did not work well. This paper examines the financial intermediation functions of banks in Indonesia and analyzes the importance of bank lending to firms. The focus is on medium-sized firms, and "relationship lending", one of the bank lending techniques, is used to examine financial intermediation in Indonesia. The results of logit regressions show that the relationship between a bank and a firm affects the probability of bank lending. The amount of borrowing and collateral are also affected by a firm's relationship with a bank. When viewed from the standpoint of relationship lending to medium-sized firms, Indonesian banks cannot be criticized for any malfunction of financial intermediation.

In un contesto in cui molti fattori causali – come la realizzazione dell’Unione Monetaria in Europa, l’innovazione tecnologica e finanziaria e Basilea 2 – stanno mutando l’assetto finanziario e produttivo nel quale banche ed imprese operano, si rende necessario un approccio nuovo alla gestione del credito e della finanza d’impresa. Da un lato, fattori esogeni come le nuove tecnologie hanno contribuito a ridurre le asimmetrie informative tra banca ed impresa rendendo più competitivo il mercato del finanziamento creditizio. Dall’altro, l’avvio di una nuova regolamentazione di tipo prudenziale, come Basilea 2, ha spinto le banche all’adozione di criteri di valutazione del rischio di credito più accurati, creando i presupposti per una più chiara individuazione dei fabbisogni ed una più severa selezione della clientela. Inoltre, fattori endogeni come il processo di consolidamento e ristrutturazione del sistema bancario ed una significativa innovazione dei prodotti finanziari hanno reso il mercato dei servizi bancari più competitivo e più articolato, consentendo di rispondere sempre meglio ai bisogni finanziari delle imprese. Obiettivo dell’opera è di illustrare come i cambiamenti competitivi e regolamentari in atto possono modificare il contesto in cui le banche operano e creare i presupposti per una gestione finanziaria dell’impresa più evoluta. Lo studio si focalizza sull’analisi dell’evoluzione del rapporto banca-impresa e si sofferma, in particolare, sui fattori che influenzano sia l’offerta dei servizi finanziari sia le determinanti delle fonti di finanziamento delle imprese, con specifica attenzione al segmento delle PMI.

Esta tesis empírica investiga algunas razones por las cuales los bancos y los proovedores desempeñan un papel central en el financiamiento de pequeñas empresas. La primera parte de la tesis refiere a "lender relationships" (relaciones entre el prestamista y el prestatario), y trata un asunto central de la teoría moderna de la intermediación financiera: ¿Es cierto que bancos acumulan informacion "soft" (subjetiva) a lo largo de su relacion con las empresas? Si es así, ¿Qué tan importante es este tipo de informacion para determinar el acceso al crédito, y los términos de los préstamos? Tomando un approach indirecto, primero se identifican los componentes "soft" y "hard" de la información acumulada por los bancos, para seguidamente explorar cómo cada uno de ellos se utiliza en la decisión del crédito. El resultado central es que la información "soft" desempeña un papel central para el acceso al crédito. Además, el tipo de interés cargado en los préstamos es más bajo cuando los intermediarios financieros tienen información "soft" sobre los prestamistas que cuando el banco no tiene ninguna información privada sobre ellos. Por otra parte, los bancos que prestan con criterios "soft" tienden a requerir colateral con una probabilidad más alta. La segunda parte de la tesis se refiere a "information spillovers" (trasmisión de información), y los investiga si los proveedores de las empresas pueden transmitir a los bancos alguna información sobre la calidad crediticia de las empresas. Usando el metodo de variables instrumentales, el cual nos permite determinar que el flujo de la informacion va de los proveedores a los bancos, logramos encontrar una respuesta positiva a esta pregunta. De hecho, es solamente la información negativa sobre las empresas lo que importa a los intermediarios financieros. Sin embargo, esta información tiene valor solamente para los intermediarios que no tienen información privada sobre sus prestatarios., This thesis investigates reasons that award financial intermediaries and input suppliers a central role in the financing of small firms. The first part examines whether 'soft' information is accumulated by relationship banks. By taking an indirect approach, I identify the soft and hard components of private information, and explore how each of them is used in the credit decision. I find that soft information plays a central role for small firms' access to credit. Further, the interest rate charged on the loans to small firms is lower, and probability of collateral requirement is higher, when financial intermediaries have soft information about the lenders. The second part of the thesis investigates whether suppliers convey information to banks about the credit quality of the firms. Using instrumental variables estimation I find a positive answer to this question. However, this information is valuable only when intermediaries do not have private information about their borrowers.

Small and medium-sized firms often obtain capital via a mixture of relationship and arm's-length bank lending. We show that such heterogeneous multiple bank financing leads to a lower probability of ineefficient credit foreclosure than both monopoly relationship lending and homogeneous multiple bank financing. Yet, in order to reduce hold-up and coordination-failure risk, the relationship bank's fraction of total firm debt must not become too large. For firms with intermediate expected profits, the probability of ineefficient credit-renegotiation is shown to decrease along with the relationship bank's information precision. For firms with extremely high or extremely low expected returns, however, it increases.

La relazione è incentrata sulla particolare attitudine della banca, orientata al relationship lending, a sostenere la crescita delle imprese e, dunque, lo sviluppo del sistema. I caratteri del relationship lending sono drescritti con particolare riferimento alla realtà italiana.

Il relationship lending rappresenta un modalità con la quale le imprese possono trarre vantaggi in termini di condizioni del credito. Il alternativa, nel caso delle PMI, il capitale interno rappresenta la principale fonti di finanziamento. La scelta autofinanziamento è qui indagata come modalitàà alternativa al credito nel finanziamento delle PMI.

This paper examines the impact of country specific determinants on multiple banking using a unique survey sample of 4959 SMEs from 19 European countries. Our data shows that (1) SMEs in countries with inefficient loan enforcement mechanisms are more likely to maintain multiple bank relationships, (2) the association between multiple banking and bank fragility is non-monotonous, being negative when the banking system is relatively stable and positive for high values of bank fragility, and (3) multiple banking is more likely for SMEs in countries with larger banking systems as well as smaller and less active securities markets. Overall, this evidence suggests that SMEs need multiple banking as a diversification mechanism to overcome expensive adverse selection that may arise within a country that suffers from an inefficient legal system and fragile banks, but also that movement towards a more market based financial system decreases the likelihood of multiple bank relationships for SMEs. These findings have important implications for policy makers in Europe when contemplating SME access to finance.

We consider an imperfectly competitive loan market in which a local relationship lender has an information advantage vis-à-vis distant transaction lenders. Competitive pressure from the transaction lenders prevents the local lender from extracting the full surplus from projects, so that she inefficiently rejects marginally profitable projects. Collateral mitigates the inefficiency by increasing the local lender’s payoff from precisely those marginal projects that she inefficiently rejects. The model predicts that, controlling for observable borrower risk, collateralized loans are more likely to default ex post, which is consistent with the empirical evidence. The model also predicts that borrowers for whom local lenders have a relatively smaller information advantage face higher collateral requirements, and that technological innovations that narrow the information advantage of local lenders, such as small business credit scoring, lead to a greater use of collateral in lending relationships. JEL classification: D82; G21 Keywords: Collateral; Soft infomation; Loan market competition; Relationship lending

Consolidation in the banking industry has caused concern about the survival of small banks. However, empirical evidence shows that often small banks are performing better than larger banks in terms of loan growth and profitability. This paper addresses the main question of "how David can be successful in a Goliath's world" analysing two broad sets of issues, tested on a sample of Italian small banks. We first address the question of whether peculiarities of small banks are good explanatory variables of their loan growth. In particular, we demonstrate that, in terms of loan growth, best performers in the small banking group are those banks who are most able t o ripen the hypothesized small bank advantages, e.g. their ability to process and use soft-information. Second, we also investigate the relationship between loan growth and profitability and credit risk to point out which small banks can continue to be viable competitors of larger banks.

Forthcoming, Journal of Banking and Finance, Market size structure refers to the distribution of shares of different size classes of local market participants, where the sizes are inclusive of assets both within and outside the local market. We apply this new measure of market structure in two empirical analyses of the U.S. banking industry to address concerns regarding the effects of the consolidation in banking. Our quantity analysis of the likelihood that small businesses borrow from large versus small banks and our small business loan price analysis that includes market size structure as well as conventional measures yield very different findings from most of the literature on bank size and small business lending. Our results do not suggest a significant net advantage or disadvantage for large banks in small business lending overall, or in lending to informationally opaque small businesses in particular. We argue that the prior research that excluded market size structure may be misleading and offer some likely explanations of why our results differ.

A new approach to search for structural breaks in the retail lending rates pass-through in the wake of EMU is proposed and implemented for Italy and Portugal. The econometric exercise shows that breakpoints cluster in the second semester 1999 and that the pass-through on short term lending is, in contrast with earlier research, sizeably lower in the post-break period. The recently proposed distinction between monetary policy and cost-of-funds approaches in the pass-through analysis does not yield different breakpoints. These results challenge the widely held view that EMU has in its wake enhanced the effectiveness of monetary transmission via the banking sector and made it more uniform across countries, because of rising and converging pass-throughs. A strengthened relationship lending could at least partly explain the reduced pass-through in the Italian case.

This paper studies relationship lending in a framework where the cost of switching banks measures the degree of banking competition. The relationship lender's (insider bank's) informational advantage creates a lock-in effect, which is at its height when the switching cost is infinitesimal. This is because a low switching cost gives rise to a potential adverse selection problem, and outsider banks are thus reluctant to make overly aggressive bids. This effect gradually fades as the magnitude of the switching cost increases, which de facto reduces the insider bank's profits. However, after a certain threshold in the switching cost, the insider bank's 'mark-up' begins to increase again. Hence, relationship benefits are a non-monotonous (V-shaped) function of the switching cost. The 'dynamic implication' of this pattern is that relationship formation should be more common under extreme market structures, i.e., when the cost of switching banks is either very low or sufficiently high. Recent empirical evidence lends support to this prediction.

Small and medium-sized firms typically obtain capital via bank financing. They often rely on a mixture of relationship and arm’s-length banking. This paper explores the reasons for the dominance of heterogeneous multiple banking systems. We show that the incidence of inefficient credit termination and subsequent firm liquidation is contingent on the borrower’s quality and on the relationship bank’s information precision. Generally, heterogeneous multiple banking leads to fewer inefficient credit decisions than monopoly relationship lending or homogeneous multiple banking, provided that the relationship bank’s fraction of total firm debt is not too large.

Die Rendite von Sparkassen und Genossenschaftsbanken liegt in Deutschland über der von privaten Geschäftsbanken. Das vorliegende Papier bietet einen theoretischen Erklärungsansatz, der diese Renditeunterschiede auf Differenzen in der Kreditvergabestrategie zurückführt. Dieses Modell zeigt, dass Finanzintermediäre, die ihre Informationen über Kunden durch langfristige Kreditbeziehungen generieren, einen Vorteil gegenüber solchen Banken haben, die bei ihrer Kreditvergabe auf handelbare Informationen setzen. Bezogen auf die Situation im deutschen Bankensektor bedeutet dies, dass Sparkassen, aber auch Genossenschaftsbanken durch ihre beziehungsbasierte Kreditvergabestrategie einen Vorteil gegenüber solchen Banken haben, die in erster Linie auf der Grundlage handelbarer Informationen operieren.

The present paper investigates the number of bank relationships of small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland using survey data from 1996 and 2002. We differentiate between overall bank relationships and lending relationships and disaggregate the loan market with respect to firm sizes, industries and banking groups. On average, bank lending declined, while the role of housebank relationships increased in 1996-2002. The development of the number of bank relationships seems to have been demand-driven as well as supply-driven for medium-sized firms, but only supply-driven for very small and small firms. Supply-side reductions resulted from the merger between two big banks and changes in credit risk management at major banks.

Evidence from credit files is provided to examine bank lending determinants of Thai commercial banks. Their lending practice follows reasonable patterns as a standard set of variables, including indirect risk variables, explains much of the variance in interest rate spread. Reflecting institutional differences with mature markets, we find higher importance of relationship banking and risk control via credit availability. Information about later default reveals prudent relationship lending. However, banks could have made better use of available information about borrowers' riskiness. These findings do not support a general verdict of bad banking but indicate room to improve lending decisions.

This paper studies relationship lending in a framework where the cost of switching banks measures the degree of banking competition. The relationship lender's (insider bank's) informational advantage creates a lock-in effect, which is at its height when the switching cost is infinitesimal.This is because a low switching cost gives rise to a potential adverse selection problem, and outsider banks are thus reluctant to make overly aggressive bids.This effect gradually fades as the magnitude of the switching cost increases, which de facto reduces the insider bank's profits.However, after a certain threshold in the switching cost, the insider bank's 'mark-up' begins to increase again.Hence, relationship benefits are a non-monotonous (V-shaped) function of the switching cost.The 'dynamic implication' of this pattern is that relationship formation should be more common under extreme market structures ie when the cost of switching banks is either very low or sufficiently high.Recent empirical evidence lends support to this prediction.

Die Rendite von Sparkassen und Genossenschaftsbanken liegt in Deutschland über der von privaten Geschäftsbanken. Das vorliegende Papier bietet einen theoretischen Erklärungsansatz, der diese Renditeunterschiede auf Differenzen in der Kreditvergabestrategie zurückführt. Dieses Modell zeigt, dass Finanzintermediäre, die ihre Informationen über Kunden durch langfristige Kreditbeziehungen generieren, einen Vorteil gegenüber solchen Banken haben, die bei ihrer Kreditvergabe auf handelbare Informationen setzen. Bezogen auf die Situation im deutschen Bankensektor bedeutet dies, dass Sparkassen, aber auch Genossenschaftsbanken durch ihre beziehungsbasierte Kreditvergabestrategie einen Vorteil gegenüber solchen Banken haben, die in erster Linie auf der Grundlage handelbarer Informationen operieren.

Small and medium-sized firms typically obtain capital via bank financing. They often rely on a mixture of relationship and arm's-length banking. This paper explores the reasons for the dominance of heterogeneous multiple banking systems. We show that the incidence of inefficient credit termination and subsequent firm liquidation is contingent on the borrower's quality and on the relationship bank's information precision. Generally, heterogeneous multiple banking leads to fewer inefficient credit decisions than monopoly relationship lending or homogeneous multiple banking, provided that the relationship bank's fraction of total firm debt is not too large.

The role of relationship banking has been the subject of intensive discussion in recent years. A large body of the literature has examined the benefits and costs related to lender-borrower relationships in small business finance. Despite the numerous studies conducted in both market-based and bank-based economies, the specific sources of the determinants of the value of relationship lending are ambiguous. However, many research results imply that a close and long-term relationship with the bank is desirable for small businesses. In this study, we investigate the sources of value in Finnish lender-borrower relationships in small business finance. We conduct three separate empirical studies that cover the following aspects of relationship banking: determinants of the value of the bank-firm relationship, collateral requirements and borrower risk, and the comparison of the different characteristics of relationship banking in bank financing and non-bank financing. We use unique and detailed credit file data from two sources, bank data from one of the largest banks in Finland and non-bank data from a large financial institution owned by the Finnish state. Both datasets cover the period 1995 to 2001. Our main findings are the following. First, duration and scope are important characteristics in determining the sources of value in the bank-firm relationship. We find that a longer relationship tends to lower the cost of the credit, and that wider scope tends to decrease the collateral requirements significantly. Second, a long-lasting bank-firm relationship is beneficial, especially to high-risk firms. As the relationship matures, loan premiums for high-risk firms decrease at a higher rate than for low-risk firms. Third, low-risk borrowers put up more collateral than high-risk borrowers, which implies the existence of a signaling effect. According to the signaling theory, low-risk firms are willing to pledge more collateral than high-risk firms. Fourth, when comparing bank and non-bank credit files, we find that bank-firm characteristics are not fully transferable to the relationship between a non-bank and a firm.