The ex ante theory of collateral states that better informed lenders, such as informal lenders, rely less on collateral. We test this by contrasting the use of collateral between formal and informal lenders in the same market. Indeed, formal lenders rely more often on collateral, controlling for...

Usury is a frequent occurrence in consumer credit markets and particularly affects low-income households. Although the term usury conjures images of a greedy individual consciously acting to exploit the weak bargaining position of another by deceitful and even fraudulent means, we consider it as...

Due to opaque information and weak enforcement in emerging loan markets, the need for collateral is high, whereas borrowers lack adequate assets to pledge as collateral. How is this puzzle solved? We find for a representative sample from Northeast Thailand that indeed most loans do not include...

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...

We claim that we currently live in a banking regulatory bubble.We review how: i) banking intermediation theory hinges on dealing with borrower-lender asymmetry of information; ii) instead, the presence of complete information is keystone of finance theory. Next, we document how finance theory...

This paper examines the influence of environmental factors on the technical and revenue efficiency of German savings banks. It employs a two-step approach, using, first, data envelopment analysis to calculate efficiency and, second, multivariate regressions to examine the influence of regional...

The macroprudential regulatory framework of Basel III imposes the same minimum capital and liquidity requirements on all banks around the world to ensure global competitiveness of banks. Using an agent-based model of the financial system, we find that this is not a robust framework to achieve...

Due to opaque information and weak enforcement in emerging loan markets, the need for collateral is high, whereas borrowers lack adequate assets to pledge as collateral. How is this puzzle solved? We find for a representative sample from Northeast Thailand that indeed most loans do not include...