Does the cost of credit insurance affect the availability of credit? To answer this question, we couple comprehensive bank-firm level CDS trading data from DTCC to the German credit register containing bilateral bank-firm credit exposures. We assess the differential impact on market participants...

We propose a heteroscedastic regression model to identify the determinants of the dispersion in interest rates on loans granted to small and medium sized enterprises. We interpret unexplained deviations as evidence of the banks' discretionary use of market power in the loan rate setting process....

Using a unique data set on German banks' loans to the German real economy, we investigate banks' credit risk. This data set includes the volume of loans per bank and industry as well as the corresponding write-downs. Our empirical study for the period 2003-2011 yields the following results: (i)...