Previous research has shown that access to credit is essential for firms. Thereby it also determines the economic development of a country. The recent crisis highlighted the importance of a well function credit market for firms. Access to credit is determined by a number of firm- and country-specific factors. The banking sector in Germany has the particular characteristics that it is a three pillar system, with private commercial banks, cooperative banks and savings banks. Moreover, traditionally there existed and may still exist a close relationship between firm and bank. This also implies that the financial health of the relationship bank has important effects on access to credit for firms. In this project there should be a theoretical analysis of how firm-specific characteristics and the bank-firm relationship influence access to credit. The resulting hypotheses should be test empirically both in a cross-country study and for Germany. For Germany the data will be collected through a survey that is conducted as part of the project.
Game and contract theory, survey, microeconometrics.
survey
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