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Working Paper
Deposits and relationship lending
The authors empirically examine the hypothesis that access to deposits with inelastic rates (core deposits) permits a bank to make contractual agreements with borrowers that are infeasible if the bank must pay market rates for its funds. Access to core deposits insulates a bank's costs of funds from exogenous shocks, allowing the bank to insulate its borrowers against exogenous credit shocks. The authors find that, controlling for competitive conditions in loan markets, banks funded more heavily with core deposits provide more smoothing of loan rates in response to exogenous changes in ...
Journal Article
That thing venture capitalist do
Although many people know the term venture capital, not many people know precisely what role venture capitalists play in the economy. How do they identify entrepreneurs with promising new ideas? What kinds of services do they provide to these entrepreneurs? Mitchell Berlin answers these and other questions as he describes "that thing venture capitalists do."
Working Paper
Financing, commitment and entry deterrence
Journal Article
New rules for foreign banks: what's at stake?
In response to the financial crisis, stricter rules are being phased in for foreign banks operating on U.S. soil. Mitchell Berlin explains how global banking drives efficiency, how the new rules may impede that efficiency, and why the rules may nevertheless be necessary.
Journal Article
For better and for worse: three lending relationships
Are close, long-term relationships between borrowers and lenders feasible in an increasingly competitive financial marketplace? How do relationships that have developed between banks and firms change when firms gain access to alternative funding sources, especially public securities markets? Can firms gain the best of both worlds by a judicious mixture of bank and public borrowing? Using three firms as examples, Mitchell Berlin sizes up the pros and cons of relationship lending.
Working Paper
Disclosure of stress test results
Should regulatory bank examinations be made public? Regulators have argued that the confidentiality of the examination process promotes frank exchanges between bankers and examiners and that public disclosure of examination results could have a chilling effect. I examine the tradeoffs in a world in which examination results can be kept confidential, but regulatory interventions are observable by market participants, as they typically are for stress tests. Inducing banks to communicate truthfully requires regulators to engage in forbearance, which is priced into banks? uninsured debt and ...
Working Paper
Public versus private debt: confidentiality, control, and product markets
The authors examine a firm's choice between public and private debt in a model where the firm's financing source affects its product market behavior. Two effects are examined. When frims' risk-taking decisions are strategic substitutes, debt financing leads to excessively risky product market strategies (as in Brander and Lewis' (1986) Cournot oligopoly with debt). Lender control through restrictive covenants--which is characteristic of private debt--can commit the firm to reduce aggressiveness in product markets and increase expected profits. This is the monitoring effect. On the other hand, ...
Working Paper
Concentration of Control Rights in Leveraged Loan Syndicates
We ?nd that corporate loan contracts frequently concentrate control rights with a subset of lenders. Despite the rise in term loans without ?nancial covenants?so-called covenant-lite loans?borrowing ?rms? revolving lines of credit almost always retain traditional ?nancial covenants. This split structure gives revolving lenders the exclusive right and ability to monitor and to renegotiate the ?nancial covenants, and we con?rm that loans with split control rights are still subject to the discipline of ?nancial covenants. We provide evidence that split control rights are designed to mitigate ...
Journal Article
Recent developments in consumer credit and payments
On September 20-21, 2007, the Research Department and the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia held their fourth joint conference to present and discuss the latest research on consumer credit payments. Approximately 75 participants attended the conference, which included six research papers on topics such as liquidity constraints, the rise in bankruptcy, and the financial mistakes made by credit card holders. In ?Recent Developments in Consumer Credit and Payments,? Mitchell Berlin summarizes the papers presented at the conference. ; Also issued as Payment Cards ...