Firms' incentives to join up with other firms to apply collectively for a single loan are studied empirically in this paper. When several firms make a joint application for a single loan an association of firms is created. We identify the associations that had access to credit in Belgium over...

In this paper we analyze the effect of bank capital on lending expansion and contraction for nearly 150 years in Spain. We fi rst build up thoroughly a measure of bank leverage (i.e. the capital to assets ratio) for the Spanish banking sector starting in year 1880. Then, we run a proper...

We show that loan origination time is key for bank lending standards, cycles, defaults and failures. We exploit the credit register from Spain, with the time of a loan application and its granting. When VIX is lower (booms), banks shorten loan origination time, especially to riskier firms. Bank...