The impact of capital on lending in publicly-traded and privately- held banks in the EU

This paper extends the literature on the link between lending and capital by examining the role of equity ownership structure for this link in banks operating in the European Union. As theory predicts, publicly-traded banks are more prone to heightened agency problems (moral hazard and adverse selection) due to dispersed ownership and therefore have stronger incentives to engage in excessive risk-taking especially in economic expansions. This may bring about procyclical lending effect in economic downturns. Theory also predicts that these banks are also more affected by capital market frictions in economic downturns. Applying Blundell and Bond (1998) two step robust GMM estimator we predict and find that the link between lending and capital in economic downturns is stronger in publicly-traded banks than in privately- held banks. Additionally, the link between lending and capital during expansions is stronger in the case of privately- held banks reporting unconsolidated data, but not for banks reporting consolidated financial reports. Finally, we find empirical support for the view that lending of privately- held banks is not constrained by capital ratio in economic downturns.