The safe are rationed, the risky not – an extension of the Stiglitz-Weiss model

Abstract

Using only two risk types in the Stiglitz-Weiss model it turns out that the return function for banks has to be double hump-shaped. We derive the demand for loans and the supply of loans and find that loans are provided at two interest rates in equilibrium. The safe borrowers are rationed at the lower interest rate, whereas the risky borrowers are not rationed at all. Compared to the existing literature this suggests that the more heterogenous the risk types are, the less credit is rationed. However, credit-rationing persists in equilibrium as long as we consider a discrete number of types.