 Contagion through common borrowersSwarnava S. Biswas and Fabiana Gómez Journal of Financial Stability, 2018, vol. 39, issue C, 125-132 Abstract: We propose a model in which banks are exposed to the risk of contagion through their portfolio of loans. We show that a solvency problem in one bank can be transmitted to another if they lend to the same borrower. The novelty is that the channel for the transmission involves banks’ monitoring incentives. The intensity with which all banks monitor a common borrower is reduced when one of the banks suffers a solvency shock. The reduced effort intensity affects the borrower's probability of success and creates a contagion (endogenous correlation) from the balance-sheet of the affected bank to the balance-sheet of the other banks lending to the same borrower. Banks hit by a solvency shock have lower incentives to monitor borrowers because less is left after paying depositors. Banks not hit by a solvency shock face borrowers’ risks entirely on their own, which increases the expected cost of lending. As a consequence, they respond by reducing the monitoring intensity for the common borrower. Bank equity can mitigate the risk of contagion. Keywords: Financial contagion; Monitoring incentives; Systemic risk; Syndicated loans (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finsta:v:39:y:2018:i:c:p:125-132 DOI: 10.1016/j.jfs.2018.10.001 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Financial Stability is currently edited by I. Hasan, W. C. Hunter and G. G. Kaufman More articles in Journal of Financial Stability from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.