This paper investigates the performance of Germany's three-pillar banking system in providing financial services nationwide, regarding different outreach indicators. At the federal state level, bank outreach shows South-North and West-East gaps. Combining regional and bank data at the district...

Aufgrund der starken regionalen Verankerung kann bei den Sparkassen ein besonderes Interesse an den Folgen des demographischen Wandels und speziell von Alterung und Abwanderung vermutet werden. Dabei sind die Sparkassen nicht nur über das Regionalprinzip eng mit einer bestimmten Region...

This paper examines the influence of environmental factors on technical, cost, scale and revenue efficiency of German savings banks in 2001‐2005. Taking into account growing regional disparities in economic wealth and population size, it differentiates between declining and growing regions....

Using internal data of a leasing company in Germany, we examine the determinants of the probability and use of leasing by small firms. We find that small and young firms are likely to be constrained on the leasing market but use leasing to increase their debt capacity. Beyond contract- and...

Strong lending relationships between banks and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in the bank-based financial system of Germany. So far, they have been mainly described by the notion of an housebank and transactional features of long-term bank-customer relationships. The...

Guarantee banks backed by the state aim to close the gap in the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises or start-ups caused by lacking collateral or equity and high information asymmetry. The present study quantifies the economic and fiscal net benefits of guarantee banks in the new...