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Time for a change: loan conditions and bank behavior when firms switch banks

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2010
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Finance
Issue number5
Volume65
Number of pages31
Pages (from-to)1847–1877
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This paper studies loan conditions when firms switch banks. Recent theoretical work on bank–firm relationships motivates our matching models. The dynamic cycle of the loan rate that we uncover is as follows: a loan granted by a new (outside) bank carries a loan rate that is significantly lower than the rates on comparable new loans from the firm's current (inside) banks. The new bank initially decreases the loan rate further but eventually ratchets it up sharply. Other loan conditions follow a similar economically relevant pattern. This bank strategy is consistent with the existence of hold-up costs in bank–firm relationships.