What are the macroeconomic consequences of business credit booms? Are they as dangerous as household credit booms? If not, why not? We answer these questions by collecting data on nonfinancial business liabilities (primarily bank loans and corporate bonds) for 17 advanced economies over the past...

When the debt of firms in distress is dispersed, a restructuring agreement is difficult to reach because of free riding. We develop a repeated game in which banks come across each other frequently, allowing them to threaten a punishment in case of free riding. As the number of lending banks...