Credit Availability and Capital Crunch: On the Role of the Heterogeneity of the Banking System

Olivier Bruno

Journal of Public Economic Theory, 2009, vol. 11, issue 2, pages 251-279

Abstract: We analyze the impact of a credit crunch on aggregate investment via the heterogeneous structure of the banking system. We develop a model of endogenous credit allocation in which investors and two banks differ according to their level of capital and monitoring technology. In a context of moral hazard problem, we show that banks' cost advantage in the monitoring of small businesses must be compared to their relative amount of capital in order to explain firms' optimal choice of financing, the credit allocation in the economy and the asymmetric impact of a credit crunch on aggregate investment. A shock of the same magnitude on the two banks level of capital may have a different effect on total investment. We stress that the credit crunch is maximum when the shock hits the bank specialized in the financing of small businesses and when this bank is also the less capitalized. This result is supported by recent empirical studies ( Hancock and Wilcox 1998). Copyright © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc..

Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2009.01409.x link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:11:y:2009:i:2:p:251-279

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1097-3923

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economic Theory is edited by John P. Conley and Myrna Holtz Wooders

More articles in Journal of Public Economic Theory from Association for Public Economic Theory
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().