No description available.

The implication of credit rationing models states that the effect of monetary policy on output may be stronger when credit conditions are tight than when they are loose. Therefore, there may be a thresholde effect on the relation between real money supply and output. Existing empirical studies on testing threshold effects ignore the fact that the monetary policy and the credit conditions are endogenous, which are follow some optimal rules. Seeing that the past studies considering the endogenous monetary policy only cannot provide substantial evidence of the credit rationing theory, this article provides an extending test of threshold effects when monetary policy and the indicator of credit conditions are endogenous. Moreover, this study finds that the US aggregate data can still provide significant evidence of a threshold effect on the relation between money and output, comparing to the endogenous monetary policy partially considered.

none

none

In the first part of the thesis I focus on credit markets in developing countries, and describe the competitive interaction between Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Microfinance has recently attracted a lot of attention from investors, politicians, scholars and, most of all, people working on development. As a results, a huge number of MFIs are being created all over the world so that, as of today, practitioners reckon that about 100 millions of customers are being served. Remarkably, about 67% of them are women. The reason of this extraordinary effort is that Microfinance is considered the most promising development tool currently available. This belief is based on two important features of Microfinance: (i) It promises to be financially viable (and in some cases even profitable) since poor people have proven to be reliable clients. As a result, Microfinance is potentially a zero-cost development tool. (ii) It hinges on the entrepreneurial abilities of the poor. It is designed to help the poor to help themselves, in their own home countries, by allowing them to use their skills, ideas and potentials. This should progressively make developing countries independent of rich ones' help. The growth of Microfinance has been so fast that many issues and related research questions are still not answered. In my thesis I try to address one of them, that I believe particularly important: the increase of competition between MFIs. As economic theory predicts, competition can have dramatic consequences in terms of borrower welfare, profitability of the institutions and, therefore, on the attractiveness of the business for potential investors, donors and entrants. I use the tools of industrial organization and contract theory to understand these effects, measure them, and give some interesting policy advice. In the first paper, I analyze the effects of entry of a new MFI in a previously monopolistic microcredit market. In order to catch the salient features of financial markets in developing countries, I use a model of asymmetric information and assume that institutions can offer only one type of contract. I consider different behavioral assumptions for the MFIs and study their influence on equilibrium predictions. The model allows showing that competition can lead to equilibria in which MFIs differentiate their contracts in order to screen borrowers. This process can, unfortunately, make the poor borrowers worse off. Interestingly, the screening process we describe creates a previously unexplored source of credit rationing. I also prove that the presence in the market of an altruistic MFI, reduces rationing and, via this channel, affects positively the competitor's profit. In the second paper, I study the effects of competition in those markets in which, due to the absence of credit bureaus, small entrepreneurs can simultaneously borrow from more than one institution. As in the first paper, I analyze an oligopolistic microcredit market characterized by asymmetric information and institutions that can offer only one type of contract. The main contribution is to show that appropriate contract design can eliminate the ex-ante incentives for multiple borrowing. Moreover, when the market is still largely unserved and particularly risky, a screening strategy leading to con- tract differentiation and credit rationing is unambiguously the most effective to avoid multiple borrowing. The result of this paper can also be read as important robustness checks of the findings of my first paper. In the last part of the thesis, I depart from the analysis of developing countries to consider, more generally, the corporate governance of financial infrastructures. The efficient functioning of financial markets relies more and more on the presence of infrastructures providing services like clearing, settlement, messaging and many others. The last years have been characterized by interesting dynamics in the ownership regime of these service providers. Both mutualizations and de-mutualizations took place, together with entry and exit of different players. Starting from this observation, in the last paper (with Joachim Keller), we analyze the effects of competitive interaction between differently owned financial providers. We mainly focus on the incentives to invest in safety enhancing measures and we describe the different equilibrium market configurations. We use a model in which agents need an input service for the financial market they operate in. They can decide whether to provide it them selves by forming a Cooperative or outsource it from a Third Party Provider. We prove that the co-existence of differently governed infrastructures leads to a significant reduction in the investment in safety. In most cases, monopolistic provision is preferable to competition. Moreover, the decision rule used within the Cooperative plays a central role in determining the optimal market configuration. All in all, throughout my thesis, I use the tools of industrial organization and contract theory to model the competitive interaction of the different actors operating in financial markets. Understanding the dynamics typical of developing countries can help in gaining a deeper comprehension of the markets in richer countries, and vice-versa. I am convinced that analyzing the differences and the similarities of financial markets in different regions of the world can be of great importance for economic theorists, in that it provides a counterfactual for the assumptions and the results on which our predictions and policy advices are based.

Prior literature finds that firms incur a lower cost of debt capital when they voluntarily disclose information. However, the economic literature demonstrates that creditors' lending standards become more stringent (lax) when credit is rationed (abundant) suggesting that they value voluntary disclosure from borrowers differentially across credit market regimes. I draw upon the economic and finance literature on credit rationing to test whether the effects of voluntary disclosure on firms' cost of debt capital is greater during periods of credit rationing. I provide some evidence that confirms this prediction. Moreover, I provide some evidence that this relation is stronger for smaller firms than larger firms during periods of credit rationing suggesting that creditors value voluntary disclosure more from firms that have fewer resources to cover the increased agency cost of lending during periods of credit rationing.

This collection of papers originates from my interest in the reform efforts in transitional economies. Each of the chapters is self-contained. Chapter one presents a brief literature survey of those schools of thought that have contributed to our knowledge about privatization. In chapter two, a public firm model and a private firm model are compared based on agency approach, assuming that the owner of a firm has cost information but also bears the cost of production. I find that the question which type of ownership, private or public, is superior does not have a clear cut answer. Private ownership may induce higher work effort but suffers from a discrepancy of private and social goals. While production distortion is less serious, an obvious disincentive to work exists in the public firm. Chapter three examines how privatization can be considered as a threat to stimulate a public firm manager's work incentive when his effort level cannot be observed by the government. I find that, in the case when commitment to privatize is impossible, the government will set a strictly positive wage rate and a strictly positive investment subsidy to signal the government's determination to implement the privatization policy. In chapter four, I examine the role that public investment plays in a financial market with a credit rationing problem. Two kinds of borrowers co-exist in the economy, namely the public and the private. Public borrowers enjoy a "first mover" advantage to borrow money from banks. In this situation, the credit rationing is found escalating. But since the success of a public project (owned by a public borrower) can exert positive externality on the productivity of private projects, the adverse effect induced by credit rationing can be alleviated. We show that if the quality of the public projects is good enough, the economic growth rate can be higher than the case without public projects in the economy. / Ph. D.

This dissertation is a collection of essays on financial market development and economic growth. In contrast to existing literature, which considers credit for investment along, we investigate the relationship between credit market development and economic growth in the framework where both investment and consumption are financed via credit markets. The environment developed on this dissertation creates a role for each kind of credit to play. First, credit market conditions of entrepreneurs and consumers are related and depend on each other. Second, the interactions between consumers and entrepreneurs are of importance for economic growth. The models are empirically relevant, as they can explain why the effect of credit market development on economic growth appears to differ between high-income and middle- and low-income countries. / Ph. D.

L'étude des difficultés d'accès des Petites et Moyennes Entreprises (PME) tunisiennes aux fonds montre que ces entreprises connaissent un “déficit d'intégration bancaire” qui peut être expliqué par la théorie du rationnement du crédit. La réticence des banques tunisiennes à s'impliquer dans le financement des PME est en grande partie expliquée par les caractéristiques structurelles et financières du système bancaire tunisien qui connaît une prépondérance des banques de dépôts se traduisant par une limitation de la concurrence sur le coût de financement. Elle est aussi expliquée par les faiblesses qu'enregistre la Tunisie en matière de partage d'information de crédit et de protection légale des créanciers tout au long de l'opération de financement.La vérification empirique du rationnement des PME sur le marché du crédit bancaire tunisien est fondée sur une estimation d'un modèle de déséquilibre sur la base d'un échantillon de données de panel composé de 1760 PME sur la période 2001-2006. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les PME tunisiennes, dépendantes du crédit bancaire, cherchent à éviter de mobiliser cette source de financement chaque fois qu'elles enregistrent une augmentation de leurs ressources internes ou font recours au crédit fournisseur. La très forte aversion au risque des banques fait que la décision d'offre du crédit dépend principalement de la garantie réelle et se traduit par une proportion moyenne d'environ 90% des entreprises qui sont - partiellement ou totalement - rationnées. / The study of Tunisian Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) difficulties to access to funds shows that these enterprises experience a “banking integration deficit” that can be explained by credit rationing theory. The reluctance of Tunisian banks to become involved in SMEs' financing is largely explained by the structural and financial characteristics of the Tunisian banking system whereof of the dominance of commercial banks results in a limitation of competition on the financing cost. It is also explained by the weaknesses experienced by Tunisia as regards the sharing information and the creditors legal protection throughout the financing transaction.The empirical verification of Tunisian SMEs' credit rationing on the Tunisian bank credit market is founded on an estimate of a disequilibrium model on the basis of a panel data set of 1760 Tunisian SMEs over the period 2001-2006. Results show that Tunisian SMEs, dependent on bank credit, seek to avoid the call for this source of financing every time they experience an increase in their internal resources or have recourse to trade credit. The very strong risk aversion of banks makes the credit supply decision mainly dependent on real guarantee, and results to an average proportion of 90% - partially or totally - credit rationed enterprises.

<p>This thesis consists of five chapters.</p><p><b>Chapter 1 and 2 </b>The first chapter presents the introduction and the summary and the second chapter provides details on the survey and the data collection.</p><p>Chapter 3 The demand and supply of credit in the rural finance markets are investigated in this paper using data on 989 households, in Orissa, India. The aim is to study the effects of household, farm productive characteristics and the policy variables on the demand and supply of credit. A type 3 Tobit model is estimated which corrects for sample selection and endogeniety bias. In addition, a generalised Double Hurdle model is estimated where the household's access to credit is treated distinctly from decisions about the interest rate charged. The results from the type 3 tobit model suggest that the size of the operational holdings, net-wealth, the dependency ratio, educational level of the household and the wages and output prices are important determinants of the demand and supply of credit. The Double Hurdle model suggests the important result that the size of land owned plays a crucial role in whether the household obtains a loan or not.</p><p>Chapter 4 Based on the 'Rural Credit Market Survey of the Puri district in India', this paper investigates evidence on segmentation in the rural credit markets of Puri district. It further investigates the presence of any systematic association between the type of collateral offered by the household and the rate of interest at which it borrows. The data shows differences in the loan characteristics between the households borrowing from the formal and the informal sector. The empirical results confirm the presence of segmentation in the Puri credit market. For the households borrowing from the informal sector and the moneylenders, evidence also shows that the marketability of the collateral is inversely related to the interest rate. However, no such clear relationship is found for households borrowing from the formal sector.</p><p><b>Chapter 5 </b>In the theoretical and the empirical literature on rural credit markets it is widely assumed that the households are credit rationed in the formal sector, which offers subsidised credit. This view rests on the assumptions that all households have a positive demand for formal credit and that it is the cheaper source of credit. Three different models of formal credit rationing are estimated in this paper. The first model is a conventional credit-rationing model. The second model assumes that the probability to borrow from the formal sector is jointly determined by the demand for credit and the decision of the bank on access. Finally, the third model relaxes both these assumptions and the household chooses between borrowing from the formal or the informal sector. The results confirm that the access to the formal sector in the Puri rural credit markets is limited and that there exists a high demand for credit. This suggests a high degree of effective credit rationing by the formal sector in Puri. </p>