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Conference Paper
Distance and competition
Conference Paper
Bank orientation and industry specialization
How do banks react to increased interbank competition? Recent banking theory offers conflicting predictions about the impact of competition on bank orientation - i.e., the choice of relationship based versus transactional banking - and bank industry specialization. We empirically investigate the impact of interbank competition on bank branch orientation and specialization. We employ a unique data set containing detailed information on bank-firm relationships and industry classification. We find that bank branches facing stiff local competition engage relatively more in relationship-based ...
Conference Paper
Rules, discretion, and loan rates
Conference Paper
SMEs and bank lending relationships: the impact of mergers
This paper studies the impact of bank mergers on firm-bank lending relationships using information from individual loan contracts in Belgium. We analyze the effects of bank mergers on the probability of borrowers maintaining their lending relationships and on their ability to continue tapping bank credit. The Belgian financial environment reflects a number of interesting features: high banking sector concentration; ?in-market? mergers with large target banks; importance of large banks in providing external finance to SMEs; and low numbers of bank lending relationships maintained by SMEs. ; We ...