IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lar/wpaper/2006-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Do Banks Ask for Collateral and Which Ones ?

Author

Listed:
  • Régis Blazy
  • Laurent Weill

    () (Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie, Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Strasbourg)

Abstract

This paper aims at testing empirically the three major theoretical reasons why banks resort to collateral: reduction of loan loss in the event of default, adverse selection, and moral hazard. This investigation is performed by testing whether the reasons vary according to the type of collateral. We use a unique dataset of bank loans granted to French distressed firms, which contains the full information on debt contract characteristics, including the cause of default, the type and the value of all collaterals. Our work suggests that information asymmetries are not of prime importance in the decision of the bank to secure a loan, as no type of collateral helps to solve adverse selection and moral hazard problems. The reduction of the loan loss and the observed-risk hypothesis may however explain the use of collateral.

Suggested Citation

  • Régis Blazy & Laurent Weill, 2006. "Why Do Banks Ask for Collateral and Which Ones ?," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2006-03, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lar:wpaper:2006-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ifs.u-strasbg.fr/large/publications/2006/2006-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boot, Arnoud W A & Thakor, Anjan V & Udell, Gregory F, 1991. "Secured Lending and Default Risk: Equilibrium Analysis, Policy Implications and Empirical Results," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(406), pages 458-472, May.
    2. Degryse, Hans & Van Cayseele, Patrick, 2000. "Relationship Lending within a Bank-Based System: Evidence from European Small Business Data," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 90-109, January.
    3. Harhoff, Dietmar & Korting, Timm, 1998. "Lending relationships in Germany - Empirical evidence from survey data," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(10-11), pages 1317-1353, October.
    4. Jimenez, Gabriel & Saurina, Jesus, 2004. "Collateral, type of lender and relationship banking as determinants of credit risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 2191-2212, September.
    5. Berger, Allen N & Udell, Gregory F, 1995. "Relationship Lending and Lines of Credit in Small Firm Finance," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(3), pages 351-381, July.
    6. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    7. Heather M. Hulburt & Frederick C. Scherr, 2003. "Determinants of the collateralization of credit by small firms," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6-7), pages 483-501.
    8. Leeth, John D. & Scott, Jonathan A., 1989. "The Incidence of Secured Debt: Evidence from the Small Business Community," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 379-394, September.
    9. Bester, Helmut, 1985. "Screening vs. Rationing in Credit Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 850-855, September.
    10. Berger, Allen N. & Udell, Gregory F., 1990. "Collateral, loan quality and bank risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 21-42, January.
    11. Besanko, David & Thakor, Anjan V, 1987. "Collateral and Rationing: Sorting Equilibria in Monopolistic and Competitive Credit Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 28(3), pages 671-689, October.
    12. Jimenez, Gabriel & Salas, Vicente & Saurina, Jesus, 2006. "Determinants of collateral," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 255-281, August.
    13. Marc Cowling, 1999. "The incidence of loan collateralization in small business lending contracts: evidence from the UK," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(5), pages 291-293.
    14. John S. Gonas & Michael J. Highfield & Donald J. Mullineaux, 2004. "When Are Commercial Loans Secured?," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 39(1), pages 79-99, February.
    15. Booth, James R. & Booth, Lena Chua, 2006. "Loan Collateral Decisions and Corporate Borrowing Costs," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(1), pages 67-90, February.
    16. Chan, Yuk-Shee & Kanatas, George, 1985. "Asymmetric Valuations and the Role of Collateral in Loan Agreements," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 17(1), pages 84-95, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fidrmuc, Jarko & Hainz, Christa, 2010. "Default rates in the loan market for SMEs: Evidence from Slovakia," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 133-147, June.
    2. Amedeo Argentiero, 2009. "Some New Evidence on the Role of Collateral: Lazy Banks or Diligent Banks?," ISAE Working Papers 113, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY).
    3. Evžen Kocenda & Martin Vojtek, 2009. "Default Predictors and Credit Scoring Models for Retail Banking," CESifo Working Paper Series 2862, CESifo Group Munich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collateral; Bank; Credit Risk.;

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lar:wpaper:2006-03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Christophe J. Godlewski). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/lastrfr.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.