After the onset of the subprime crisis and the European debt crisis, credit default swaps (CDS) have seen a strong increase in usage. Particularly sovereign CDS protection has been sought after, paralleling the rise in sovereign debt levels, slumps in GDP growth and political tensions in...

Based on German data between 1999 and 2007, we analyze the growth factors of SMEs and contrast them with those of large _rms. Differences show up both in balance sheet and employment growth. While we confirm earlier results on inherent growth structures and the influence of firm age, we derive...

Credit rating agencies do not only disclose simple ratings but announce watchlists (rating reviews) and outlooks as well. This paper analyzes the economic function underlying the review procedure. Using Moody's rating data between 1982 and 2004, we find that for borrowers of high...

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...

This paper examines the financing structure of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Germany and questions whether an equity gap - or, more generally, a financing gap -exists. Reviewing the literature and available data sources, we find that financing constraints seem to affect, if at...

This paper provides new insights into the use of loan securitization. We analyze collateralized loan obligation (CLO) transactions by European banks from 1997 to 2004 and try to identify the influence that various firm-specific and macroeconomic factors may have on an institution's...

Generally, information provision and certification have been identified as the major economic functions of rating agencies. This paper analyzes whether the watchlist (rating review) instrument has extended the agencies' role towards a monitoring position, as proposed by Boot, Milbourn, and...

Since summer 2007 the Subprime credit crisis has been affecting the international financial markets. One of the consequences of the crisis was the collapse of the market for large-sized leveraged buyout transactions in late 2007 and early 2008. The goal of this Working Paper is to examine to...

This paper studies the effects that heterogeneous multiple bank financing has on a firm's risk- and information-policy, particularly with respect to credit renegotiation efficiency. We find that a significant, yet limited, degree of relationship lending enables firms with high asset specificity...

Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit steht die Analyse der Vor- und Nachteile einer geglätteten versus aktuellen Informationsbasis in einem theoretischen Modell. Am Beispiel stabiler Agency-Ratings und volatiler marktbasierter Ratings zeigt sich, dass die Effekte der Berichtsmethode von den...