This paper deals with Finnish bankruptcies. It shows that bankruptcies are strongly related to the business cycle and that they are perhaps even more strongly related to indebtedness, real interest rates and asset prices. The importance of these financial factors probably increased when the...

The paper analyzes bank loan supply in a simple value maximizing partial equilibrium framework. The focus is on the role of bank capital, capital regulation and the pricing of bank liabilities. The model is constructed so as to resemble the situation of the Finnish local banks in the late 1980s...

The paper examines the role of bank relationships in business closures during the Finnish economic crisis of the early 1990s. We utilise a unique panel data set of 474 small and medium-sized firms, for which we have standard accounting information and for which we can in addition identify...

The objective of this paper is to empirically analyze and quantify the effect of changes in the supply of bank credit on private investment. Particular interest is placed on the role of the credit crunch in explaining the collapse in private investment in the early 1990s. Using a vector...

The paper examines the determination of bank lending in the early 1990s with the data on 393 savings and cooperative banks. Particular attention is paid to the respective roles of bank capital and costs on the one hand and borrower quality on the other hand. The findings do not support the...

The paper discusses the possibility that the workings of the financial system contributed the boom-bust cycle in the Finnish credit market since the mid-1980s. We begin with a review of the most prominent theoretical arguments about the role of "financial factors". Also the main findings of a...