When the debt of distressed firms is dispersed, free riding makes it difficult to reach a restructuring agreement. We develop a multistage game in which banks come across each other frequently, allowing them to threaten punishment in case of free riding. As the number of banks grows, the chance...

The literature on debt restructuring usually assumes that banks behave in a uniform way towards firms in distress. Using a recent survey of Italian banks, we show that banks follow different strategies when they decide whether to take part in the workout process, in that some of them do...