Weak institutions and credit availability: the impact of crime on bank loans

This paper analyzes the relationship between the terms on bank loans and local crime rates, employing a sample of over 300,000 bank-firm relationships. Controlling for firm, market and bank characteristics the results show that where the crime rate is higher borrowers pay higher interest rates, pledge more collateral, and resort less to asset-backed loans and more to revolving credit lines than borrowers in low-crime areas. The evidence also suggests that access to credit is adversely affected by crime. The offenses that affect the loan market are those that exogenously increase firm fragility (extortion, organized crime) and raise loss given default (fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy).crime, governance and growth, financial development, credit markets, banks

Bank balance sheets and the transmission of financial shocks to borrowers: evidence from the 2007-2008 crisis

We use Italian data on bank lending to firms to study the transmission of shocks affecting bank balance sheets to the volume and cost of credit granted to business borrowers and to the probability of banks accepting loan applications from new borrowers during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The identification of the credit-supply effect is based on a difference-in-difference approach because: a large number of firms in Italy borrow from more than one bank; the shocks to the wholesale funding market were exogenous to Italian banks; and Italian banks were affected to a varying extent by the crisis depending on their funding structure. Results indicate that supply conditions worsened most for the banks that were most exposed to the interbank market and for those that made the most use of securitization. While the initial capital position of banks did not significantly affect their lending, the deterioration of bank capitalization as proxied by charge-offs and profitability had a significant impact. Furthermore, our results suggest that bank capital influenced lending indirectly, with higher capital reducing the elasticity of lending to the shocks on the funding side.bank balance sheet, transmission of shocks, credit supply, financial crisis

The risk of home mortgages in Italy: evidence from one million contracts

This study analyzes the main characteristics of loans for house purchase issued in Italy between 2004 and 2007 employing the data on individual contracts from the Sample Survey of Lending Rates. Variables describing the type of mortgage and the borrower are related to the ex post probability of late payments and defaults. We also estimate the difference in ex post risk between mortgages that have subsequently been securitized and those that have not. The main results are: variable rate contracts proved to be more risky than fixed rate contracts; the difference is larger for mortgages issued at the end of 2005, when market rates were at their lowest; late payments have been more frequent for borrowers that are younger, resident in the South or immigrants from non-EU countries; non-securitized mortgages were more likely to run into difficulties with late payments and defaults than securitized ones.home mortgages, credits

Winners or Losers? The Effects of Banking Consolidation on Corporate Borrowers

We estimate the impact of bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on outstanding credit, credit lines, and the sensitivity of investment to cash flow using a large sample of Italian corporate borrowers. We distinguish between firms that experienced relationship termination as a consequence of bank M&As and those that did not. Our findings are consistent with bank M&As having an adverse effect on credit, particularly when the M&A is followed by relationship termination. The effect persists 3 years and then is absorbed, suggesting that firms are able to compensate for the negative shock. Copyright 2007 by The American Finance Association.