Bank Loans, Bonds, and Information Monopolies Across the Business Cycle

57 Pages Posted: 26 Mar 2005

See all articles by João A. C. Santos

João A. C. Santos

Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Nova School of Business and Economics

Andrew Winton

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Carlson School of Management; Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) - Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 21, 2006

Abstract

Theory suggests that banks' private information about borrowers lets them hold up borrowers for higher interest rates. Since hold-up power increases with borrower risk, banks with exploitable information should be able to raise their rates in recessions by more than is justified by borrower risk alone. We test this hypothesis by comparing the pricing of loans for bank-dependent borrowers with the pricing of loans for borrowers with access to public debt markets, controlling for loan- and firm-specific risk factors. Loan spreads rise in recessions, but firms with public debt market access pay lower spreads and their spreads rise significantly less in recessions. Our findings suggest that, during recessions, banks do in fact charge higher rates to customers with limited outside funding options, and that the magnitude of this effect is economically significant.

Keywords: bank loans, bonds, information rents, hold-up problem

JEL Classification: G21, G32

Suggested Citation

Santos, João A. C. and Winton, Andrew, Bank Loans, Bonds, and Information Monopolies Across the Business Cycle (December 21, 2006). AFA 2006 Boston Meetings Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=687556 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.687556

João A. C. Santos

Federal Reserve Bank of New York ( email )

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Nova School of Business and Economics ( email )

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Portugal

Andrew Winton (Contact Author)

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Carlson School of Management ( email )

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United States
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Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) - Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) ( email )

Shanghai Jiao Tong University
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Shanghai, 200030
China

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