Competing insurance intermediaries provide heterogeneous services that are difficult for incompletely informed consumers to assess. Transaction cost economics, search theory, and principal-agent theory provide arguments on product quality differences between exclusive agents and independent...

The year 2010 showed how prone to crisis the Euro zone is. To a great extent this results from insufficient public policy coordination of EU member states’ public and fiscal policies. This paper discusses the main reform proposals related to fiscal, public and structural policy against the...

Demographic change influences the structure of the entrepreneurially active population, which may affect credit risk and financing conditions of small firms. Using bank internal data of small business loans in Germany, we find that the lending relationship plays a larger role for loan prices...

Using internal data of a leasing company in Germany, we examine the determinants of the probability and use of leasing by small firms. We find that small and young firms are likely to be constrained on the leasing market but use leasing to increase their debt capacity. Beyond contract- and...

Staatliche Bürgschaften und Bürgschaftsbanken sind wichtige Instrumente, um Kreditrationierung aufgrund von Informationsasymmetrien zu reduzieren und somit die Finanzierung kleiner und mittelständischer Unternehmen zu erleichtern. Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Wirksamkeit dieser...

In Germany self-employment among foreigners increased significantly in recent years. We study the geographical distribution of ethnic minority self-employment in Germany and find determinants for variations in start-up activities across 440 administrative German regions. We analyze the Statistic...

Using internal data of a leasing company in Germany, we examine the determinants of the probability and use of leasing by small firms. We find that small and young firms are likely to be constrained on the leasing market but use leasing to increase their debt capacity. Beyond contract- and...

This is the first attempt to test hypotheses about financial constraints of ethnic minority owned businesses in Germany. Using data from a survey among 3,000 ethnic and native entrepreneurs, we examine differences in the financing patterns between both demographic groups. We find that...