This paper investigates whether loan officer's level of seniority within the bank explains credit spreads. Based on a unique hand-collected database on loan applications from SMEs to a French cooperative bank between 1996 and 2009, the study suggests that senior loan officers charge higher...

We investigate the relationship between borrower quality and the structure of the pool of banks. First, we develop a theoretical model where the size of the banking pool is a credible signal of firm quality. We argue that better borrowers seek to disclose their quality in a credible way through...

Two dysfunctions can affect the credit market: credit rationing and firm's discouragement. While the former has been studied in detail for more than 40 years, the latter has only been in the spotlight since 2003. In this work, we contribute to the understanding of this “demand-side failure”...

According to Kremp and Sevestre (2013), French firms did not suffer from credit restriction during the period 2004-2010. This study seeks to identify the benefits of bank-firm relationships when credit is unconstrained. By using a unique set of data collected from a French relationship bank...

Do creditor rights influence the use of relationship lending? With data from EFIGE, gathered during a 2010 survey spanning seven European countries, this article addresses this question. First, it determines that banks and firms are more willing to implement relationship lending technology in...

For the past 20 years, scholars have extensively discussed the impact of banking competition on the choice between transactional and relationship lending technologies, both empirically and theoretically, but have not yet come to a resolution. This study addresses this question using a new...