This article empirically investigates the relationship between interbank competition, bank orientation and credit availability for a sample of more than 30 000 loans granted by a large banking group operating in the Italian credit market. We test whether and how, during a credit crunch period,...

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between banking competition and credit availability for a large sample of Italian firms. The main results show that relationships last more years when competition increases and when the loan is guaranteed by collateral. Moreover, we show a positive...