Credit rationing and the use of collateral are widely observed in debt financing. To our view there is yet no appropriate theoretical explanation for these facts. In the standard debt financing models the occurrence of credit rationing can be explained based on suitable assumptions. But those...

Major differences between national financial systems might make a common monetary policy difficult. As within Europe, Germany and the United Kingdom differ most with respect to their financial systems, the present paper addresses its topic under the assumption that the United Kingdom is already...

Individual financial systems can be understood as very specific configurations of certain keyelements. Often these configurations remain unchanged for decades. We hypothesize that thereis a specific relationship between key elements, namely that of complementarity. Thus,complementarity seems to...

This paper develops a continuous-time model of liquidity provision by banks, in which customers can deposit and withdraw their funds strategically ...

We study entrepreneurs’ start-up financing from banks and local financiers. An informalnetwork, whose membership cannot be observed by outsiders, conveys the good signals itgets about the hidden types of network entrepreneurs to local financiers, which are thenreflected in different loan...

Using data from the Philippines, this paper seeks to understand how households in thestudy area apparently manage to avoid falling in a debt trap in spite of frequent borrowing.Findings suggest this is achieved via three institutional features. First, most informal debtcarries no interest. As we...

We build a model of the financial sector to explain why adverse asset shocks in good economic timeslead to a sudden drying up of liquidity. Financial firms raise short-term debt in order to finance assetpurchases. When asset fundamentals worsen, debt induces firms to risk-shift; this limits...

Rating agencies claim to look through the cycle when assigning corporate credit ratings,which entails that they are able to separate trend components of default risk from transitoryones. To test whether agencies possess this competence, I take market-based estimates of oneyeardefault...

This paper assesses whether ratings or market-based credit risk measures are more suitable forformulating portfolio governance rules. Such rules, which consist of buy and sell restrictions,are commonly used in investment management. Based on data from 1983 to 2002, it is notevident that one of...

Using a structural model of default, I derive rating characteristics if ratings are meant tolook ‘through the cycle’ as opposed to being based on the borrowers’ current condition.The through-the-cycle method, which is employed by most rating agencies, requires aseparation of permanent and...