Irma Malafronte

Capital Requirements, Disclosure, and Supervision in the European Insurance Industry

1. Capital Requirements, Disclosure and Supervision in the European Insurance Industry PART I: THE FRAMEWORK OF SOLVENCY II AND THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EUROPEAN INSURANCE MARKET 2. Solvency II Directive and the Key Features of the European Insurance Market PART II: SOLVENCY: REQUIREMENTS AND SUPERVISION 3. The Solvency Capital Requirement 4. The Supervision of Insurance Companies PART III: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REQUIRED REPORTING AND ACTUAL DISCLOSURE 5. The Regulatory Framework for Market Discipline 6. The Actual Disclosure 7. Solvency II: A Sea of Opportunities

Competition, specialization and bank–firm interaction: what happens in credit crunch periods?

This article empirically investigates the relationship between interbank competition, bank orientation and credit availability for a sample of more than 30 000 loans granted by a large banking group operating in the Italian credit market. We test whether and how, during a credit crunch period, competition affects bank orientation and how relationship lending and interbank competition can mitigate the credit crunch problem, for financially distressed firms. Using a unique and large bank–firm level data set, the main results show that an increase in competition is associated with a stronger relationship in terms of the length of the bank–borrower interaction, whereas the distance bank branch-headquarter negatively affects it. Moreover, a strong lender–borrower relationship, in terms of length and exclusivity, is found positively significant in determining the change in the amount of credit granted. Nonlinearity and sector specialization effects are tested, too, and report interesting results, supporting the crucial role of relationship lending during a financial crisis.

Competition and Relationship Lending: What Happens in Credit Crunch Periods?

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between interbank competition, bank orientation and credit availability for a sample of more than 30,000 loans granted by a large banking group operating in the Italian credit market. We test whether and how, during a credit crunch period, competition affects bank orientation and how relationship lending and interbank competition can mitigate the credit crunch problem, for financially distressed firms. Using a unique and large bank-firm level dataset, the main results show that an increase in competition is associated with a stronger relationship in terms of the length of bank-borrower interaction, whereas the distance bank branch-headquarter negatively affect it. Moreover, a strong lender-borrower relationship, in terms of length and exclusivity, is found positively significant in determining the change in the amount of credit granted. Non-linearity and sector specialization effects are tested, too, and report interesting results, supporting the crucial role of relationship lending during a financial crisis.