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Debt Contracts, Collapse and Regulation as Competition Phenomena

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Author Info
Gersbach, Hans
Uhlig, Harald

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Abstract

This paper studies a credit market with adverse selection and moral hazard where sufficient sorting is impossible. The crucial novel feature is the competition between lenders in their choice of contracts offered. The quality of investment projects is unobservable by banks and entrepreneurs’ investment decisions are not contractible, but output conditional on investment is. The paper explains the empirically observed prevalence of debt contracts as an equilibrium phenomenon with competing lenders. Equilibrium contracts must be immune against raisin-picking by competitors. Non-debt contracts allow competitors to offer sweet deals to particularly good debtors, who will self-select to choose such a deal, while bad debtors distribute themselves across all offered contracts. Competition between banks introduces three possibilities for a breakdown of credit markets which do not occur when a bank has a monopoly. First, average returns decrease since banks compete for good lenders, which may make lending altogether unprofitable. Second, banks can have an incentive to offer a debt contract and additional equity contracts to intermediate debtors, which is in turn dominated by a simple debt contract, only attractive for very good entrepreneurs. As a result, no equilibrium in pure strategies exists. Existence can be restored in this scenario if the permissible types of contracts are limited by regulation resembling the separation of investment and commercial banking in the United States. Finally, allowing for random delivery on credit contracts leads to a breakdown since all banks seek to avoid the contract with the highest chance of delivery: that contract attracts all bad entrepreneurs.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 1742.

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Date of creation: Nov 1997
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1742

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Related research
Keywords: Adverse Selection; Competition; Contract; debt contract; financial collapse; Moral Hazard; Regulation;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
D92 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice and Growth, Investment, or Financing
G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure
G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation

References listed on IDEAS
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  4. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1994. "A Theory of Debt Based on the Inalienability of Human Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 841-79, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Aghion, Philippe & Bolton, Patrick, 1992. "An Incomplete Contracts Approach to Financial Contracting," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 59(3), pages 473-94, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Hart, Oliver D & Moore, John, 1988. "Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 755-85, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Ordover, Janusz & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Information and the Law: Evaluating Legal Restrictions on Competitive Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 399-404, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Fudenberg, Drew & Tirole, Jean, 1990. "Moral Hazard and Renegotiation in Agency Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1279-1319, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Robert Townsend, 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Staff Report 45, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Dasgupta, Partha & Maskin, Eric, 1986. "The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, II: Applications," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(1), pages 27-41, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Hellwig, Martin, 1987. "Some recent developments in the theory of competition in markets with adverse selection ," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 319-325. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Gale, Douglas & Hellwig, Martin, 1985. "Incentive-Compatible Debt Contracts: The One-Period Problem," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(4), pages 647-63, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Hans Gersbach, 2002. "Financial Intermediation and the Creation of Macroeconomic Risks," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  2. Lee Ohanian, 2000. "EconomicDynamics Interviews Lee Ohanian on the Great Depression," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), April. [Downloadable!]
  3. Harald Uhlig, 2001. "EconomicDynamics Interviews Harald Uhlig on Dynamic Contracts," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(2), April. [Downloadable!]
  4. Hans Gersbach, 2001. "The Dynamics of Deposit Insurance and the Consumption Trap," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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