Are Bigger Banks Better? Firm-Level Evidence from Germany

Kilian Huber

No 8746, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: The effects of large banks on the real economy are theoretically ambiguous and politically controversial. I identify quasi-exogenous increases in bank size in postwar Germany. I show that firms did not grow faster after their relationship banks became bigger. In fact, opaque borrowers grew more slowly. The enlarged banks did not increase profits or efficiency, but worked with riskier borrowers. Bank managers benefited through higher salaries and media attention. The paper presents newly digitized microdata on German firms and their banks. Overall, the findings reveal that bigger banks do not always raise real growth and can actually harm some borrowers.

JEL-codes: E24 E44 G21 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-bec, nep-cfn, nep-fdg and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8746.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Are Bigger Banks Better? Firm-Level Evidence from Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Are Bigger Banks Better? Firm-Level Evidence from Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Are Bigger Banks Better? Firm-Level Evidence from Germany (2021)
Working Paper: Are Bigger Banks Better? Firm-Level Evidence from Germany (2020)
Working Paper: Are bigger banks better? Firm-level evidence from Germany (2020)
Working Paper: Are bigger banks better?: firm level evidence from Germany (2020)
Working Paper: Are bigger banks better? Firm-level evidence from Germany (2020)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8746

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().