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Working Paper
When does the prime rate change?
Conference Paper
The effects of focus and diversification on bank risk and return: evidence from individual bank loan portfolios
We study empirically the effect of focus (specialization) vs. diversification on the return and the risk of banks using data from 105 Italian banks over the period 1993?1999. Specifically, we analyze the tradeoffs between (loan portfolio) focus and diversification using a unique data set that is able to identify individual bank loan exposures to different industries, to different sectors, and to different geographical regions. Our results are consistent with a theory that predicts a deterioration in bank monitoring quality at high levels of risk and a deterioration in bank monitoring quality ...
Working Paper
The hedging performance of ECU futures contracts
Working Paper
Bank equity stakes in borrowing firms and financial distress
The authors derive optimal financial claim for a bank when the borrowing firm's uninformed stakeholders depend on the bank to establish whether the firm is distressed and whether concessions by stakeholders are necessary. The bank's financial claim is designed to ensure that it cannot collude with a healthy firm's owners to seek unnecessary concessions or to collude with a distressed firm's owners to claim that the firm is healthy. To prove that a request for concessions has not come from a healthy firm/bank coalition, the bank must hold either a very small or a very large equity stake when ...
Conference Paper
Lending relationships and loan contract terms: does size matter?