During the financial crisis asymmetric information in credit markets became moresevere. Did relationship banking help firms to avoid impaired credit financing andwhich credit financing problems did relationship banking help to circumvent? We usesurvey data for 1,139 German firms to analyze how...

We analyze the determinants of interest rate spreads of different loan categories in the Czech Republic during 2004–2011. We employ a detailed bank supervisory dataset that allows us to construct the actual spreads for four loan categories, namely small and large corporate loans, consumer...

During the financial crisis asymmetric information in credit markets became moresevere. Did relationship banking help firms to avoid impaired credit financing andwhich credit financing problems did relationship banking help to circumvent? We usesurvey data for 1,139 German firms to analyze how...

We analyze the determinants of interest rate spreads of different loan categories in the Czech Republic during 2004–2011. We employ a detailed bank supervisory dataset that allows us to construct the actual spreads for four loan categories, namely small and large corporate loans, consumer...

Measuring and identifying financial constraints represents an important challenge in empirical studies. Due to data limitations perception-based indicators or approximations of access to finance by the usage of finance are often used, disregarding firm-specific differences in the demand for...

The number of firm bankruptcies is surprisingly low in economies with poor institutions. We study a model of bank-firm relationship and show that the bank?s decision to liquidate bad firms has two opposing effects. First, the bank receives a payoff if a firm is liquidated. Second, it loses the...

Access to finance is a prerequisite for economic development. Existing studies measure access by the use of finance. We develop a direct measurement for access to finance from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey 2005 data. We determine whether a firm without a loan does...

This paper analyses the determinants of collateral in loans granted to entrepreneurs and consumers. We use cross-sectional data on more than 39,000 bank loans raised by Vietnamese borrowers between 2006 and 2009. Our data set is unique because it contains information about the bank's assessment...

Credit markets in many Eastern European countries are now dominated by foreign-owned banks. We analyze the development for foreign ownership and its impact on lending rate in ten Eastern European countries between 1995 and 2003. Currently, the majority of loans from foreign banks is granted by...