Gregory F. Udell

Relationship Lending and Lines of Credit in Small Firm Finance

This article examines the role of relationship lending in small firm finance. It examines price and nonprice terms of bank lines of credit extended to small firms. The focus on bank lines of credit allows the examination of a type of loan contract in which the bank-borrower relationship is likely to be an important mechanism for solving the asymmetric information problems associated with financing small enterprises. The authors find that borrowers with longer banking relationships pay lower interest rates and are less likely to pledge collateral. These results are consistent with theoretical arguments that relationship lending generates valuable information about borrower quality. Copyright 1995 by University of Chicago Press.

The economics of small business finance: The roles of private equity and debt markets in the financial growth cycle

We examine the economics of financing small business in private equity and debt markets. Firms are viewed through a financial growth cycle paradigm in which different capital structures are optimal at different points in the cycle. We show the sources of small business finance, and how capital structure varies with firm size and age. The interconnectedness of small firm finance is discussed along with the impact of the macroeconomic environment. We also analyze a number of research and policy issues, review the literature, and suggest topics for future research.

SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT AVAILABILITY AND RELATIONSHIP LENDING: THE IMPORTANCE OF BANK ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE*

This paper models the inner workings of relationship lending, the implications for bank organisational structure, and the effects of shocks to the economic environment on the availability of relationship credit to small businesses. Relationship lending depends on the accumulation over time by the loan officer of “soft” information. Because the loan officer is the repository of this soft information, agency problems are created throughout the organisation that may best be resolved by structuring the bank as a small, closely-held organisation with few managerial layers. The shocks analysed include technological innovations, regulatory regime shifts, banking industry consolidation, and monetary policy shocks. JEL Classification Numbers: G21, G28, G34, L23

Collateral, loan quality, and bank risk

Abstract Most commercial loans are made on a secured basis, yet little is known about the relationship between collateral and credit risk. Several theoretical studies find that when borrowers have private information about risk, the lowest-risk borrowers tend to pledge collateral. In contrast, conventional wisdom holds that when risk is observable, the highest-risk borrowers tend to pledge collateral. An additional issue is whether secured loans (as opposed to secured borrowers) tend to be safer or riskier than unsecured loans. Empirical evidence presented here strongly suggests that collateral is most often associated with riskier borrowers, riskier loans and riskier banks.

The ability of banks to lend to informationally opaque small businesses

Consolidation of the banking industry is shifting assets into larger institutions that often operate in many nations. Large international financial institutions are geared toward serving large wholesale customers. How does this affect the banking systems ability to lend to informationally opaque small businesses? The authors test hypotheses about the effects of bank size, foreign ownership, and distress on lending to informationally opaque small firms, using a rich new data set on Argentinean banks, firms, and loans. They also test hypotheses about borrowing from a single bank versus borrowing from several banks. Their results suggest that large and foreign-owned institutions may have difficulty extending relationship loans to opaque small firms, especially if small businesses are delinquent in repaying their loans. Bank distress resulting from lax prudential supervision and regulation appears to have no greater effect on small borrowers than on large borrowers, although even small firms may react to bank distress by borrowing from multiple banks, despite raising borrowing costs and destroying some of the benefits of exclusive lending relationships.

Globalization of Financial Institutions: Evidence from Cross-Border Banking Performance

We address the causes, consequences, and implications of the cross-border consolidation of financial institutions by reviewing several hundred studies, providing comparative international data, and estimating cross-border banking efficiency in France, Germany, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. during the 1990s. We find that, on average, domestic banks have higher profit efficiency than foreign banks. However, banks from at least one country (the U.S.) appear to operate with relatively high efficiency both at home and abroad. If these results continue to hold, they do not preclude successful international expansion by some financial firms, but they do suggest limits to global consolidation.

Did risk-based capital allocate bank credit and cause a "credit crunch" in the United States?

This paper examines the reallocation of bank credit from loans to securities in the early 1990s using data on virtually all U.S. banks from 1979 to 1992. The authors investigate implementation of risk-based capital and other regulatory and nonregulatory changes as possible causes of a supply-driven credit crunch. The main empirical implication of these credit crunch hypotheses--that the reallocation of credit would be most associated with low-capital, high-risk banks--generally is not consistent with the data. Much of the reallocation is associated with demand-side factors but it is difficult to differentiate cleanly among these factors. Copyright 1994 by Ohio State University Press.

The economics of small business finance: the roles of private equity and debt markets in the financial growth cycle

We examine the economics of financing small business in private equity and debt markets. Firms are viewed through a financial growth cycle paradigm in which different capital structures are optimal at different points in the cycle. We show the sources of small business finance, and how capital structure varies with firm size and age. The interconnectedness of small firm finance is discussed along with the impact of the macroeconomic environment. We also analyze a number of research and policy issues, review the literature, and suggest topics for future research. JEL classification codes: G21, G28, G34, E58, L89

Secured Lending and Default Risk: Equilibrium Analysis, Policy Implications and Empirical Results

The authors examine collateral in a competitive equilibrium in which borrowers can choose hidden actions and may additionally possess hidden knowledge. Apart from explaining the widespread use of collateral despite deadweight costs, they show that an increase in the riskless interest rate causes equilibrium loan rates and collateral requirements to increase, a decline in the deadweight costs of collateral reduces the equilibrium collateral use under moral hazard, and an increase in the borrowers project size reduces equilibrium collateral use under moral hazard. Some of these predictions are tested and found to be supported by the data. Copyright 1991 by Royal Economic Society.

The institutional memory hypothesis and the procyclicality of bank lending behavior

Abstract We test a new hypothesis that may help explain the procyclicality of bank lending. The institutional memory hypothesis is driven by deterioration in the ability of loan officers over the banks lending cycle that results in an easing of credit standards. We test this hypothesis using data from individual US banks over 1980–2000: over 200,000 bank-level observations on commercial loan growth, over 2,000,000 loan-level observations on interest rate premiums, and over 2000 bank-level observations on credit standards and loan spreads from bank management survey responses. The empirical analysis supports the hypothesis, although there are differences by bank size class.