This paper studies optimal risk-taking and information disclosure by firms that obtain financing from both a 'relationship' bank and 'arm's-length' banks. We find that firm decisions are asymmetrically influenced by the degree of heterogeneity among banks: lowly-collateralized firms vary optimal...

What is the role of collateral and restructuring know how in a framework of debt renegotiation and a priori private information? We show that the result in the literature according to which debt renegotiation implies that the high-risk borrower is more inclined to pledge collateral than the...

Many researchers claim that the German universal banks’ great influence in corporate control is harmful, since these banks are often both debt holders and equity owners of the firm. However, in this paper I argue differently. Analyzing the banks’ role as investors, I find that, due to...

Small and medium-sized firms typically obtain capital via bank financing. They often rely on a mixture of relationship and arm's-length banking. This paper explores the reasons for the dominance of heterogeneous multiple banking systems. We show that the incidence of inefficient credit...

We analyze how a firm might protect quasirents in an environment of imperfect capital markets, where switching lenders is costly to the borrower, and contracts are incomplete. As switching costs make the firm vulnerable to ex post exploitation, it may want to diversify lending. Multiple-source...

Many researchers claim that the German universal banks' great influence in corporate control is harmful, since these banks are often both debt holders and equity owners of the firm. However, in this paper I argue differently. Analyzing the banks' role as investors, I find that, due to...

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...