Collateral Vs. Project Screening: A Model Of Lazy Banks

Michael Manove, Jorge Padilla and Marco Pagano

No 2439, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Many economists argue that the primary economic function of banks is to provide cheap credit, and to facilitate this function, they advocate the strict protection and enforcement of creditor rights. But banks can serve another important economic function: through project screening they can reduce the number of project failures and thus mitigate their private and social costs. Strict protection of creditor rights leaves the tradeoff between these two banking functions to the market. In this paper, we show that because of market imperfections in the banking industry, strong creditor protection may lead to market equilibria in which cheap credit is inappropriately emphasized over project screening. Restrictions on collateral requirements and the protection of debtors in bankruptcy proceedings may redress this imbalance and increase credit-market efficiency.

Keywords: Banks; Collateral; Creditor rights; Screening (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 G20 K20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-04
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Collateral Vs. Project Screening: A Model of Lazy Banks (1998)
Working Paper: Collateral vs. Project Screening: a Model of Lazy Banks (1998)
Working Paper: Collateral vs. Project Screening: A Model of Lazy Banks (1998)
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