The Lender-Borrower Relationship with Risk Averse Lenders

This paper analyzes optimal incentive compatible debt contracts when lenders are risk averse. The decisive factor in this regard is that risk aversion requiresto consider further sources of risk the lenders are exposed to. The main resultsderived in a setting of asymmetric information – the payment obligation ofthe optimal incentive compatible contract increases due to risk aversion oflenders which is reinforced by the introduction of a further source of risk – areshown to be in line with the results from the industrial organization approachof banking. Moreover, the results of the present paper are more general thanthe ones from the industrial organization approach.