This paper argues that financial intermediation can facilitate exchange of information between lenders which may lead to more efficient credit markets. The idea is that effective exchange of information is impeded if the number of lenders is too large, as is the case if households lend directly. Financial intermediation gets around this difficulty by separating the identity of capital ownership from the identity of lenders. Since each intermediary represents many capital owners, the number of direct lenders (the intermediaries) can be kept small enough for them to share information effectively even when the number of indirect lenders (depositors) is very large.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 18 (2009) Issue (Month): 2 (March) Pages: 301-305 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF