The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a credit crunch occurred in Germany during the recent financial crisis and to analyze the underlying factors. In order to disentangle credit supply and demand we specify a theory-based dynamic disequilibrium model of the German credit market....

A personal bankruptcy law that allows for a "fresh start" after bankruptcy reduces the individual risk involved in entrepreneurial activity. On the other hand, as risk shifts to creditors who recover less of their credit after a debtor's bankruptcy, lenders may charge higher interest rates or...

This paper analyses the role of bank-related constraints in explaining the sharp slowdown in bank lending to non-financial corporations in Germany during the recent financial crisis. We use a panel approach based on a unique data set which matches the individual responses of the banks...