Relations de long terme banque-entreprise, contrats de credit optimaux et equilibre macroeconomique
Institution:
Université Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg) (1971-2008)Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
Long-term relationships between banks and firms are often considered as favourable to economic activity. At the microeconomic level, long-term loan contracts dominate sequences of short-term contracts because of the savings in monitoring costs they imply. Our analysis focuses notably on the importance of reputation effects as incentive devices and shows how long-term relationships can lead to the emergence of new kinds of banking contracts mixing features of debt and equity. Our study also shows that long-term relationships may lead banks to slacken monitoring. Such relationships may thus imply an inefficiency in the allocation of credit, which makes ambiguous the final effect on the macroeconomic equilibrium.
Abstract FR:
Les relations de long terme entre les banques et les entreprises sont souvent considerees comme un element favorable a l'activite economique. Au plan microeconomique, des contrats de credit de long terme sont preferables a des sequences de contrats de court terme grace aux economies de couts de controle qu'ils impliquent. Notre analyse insiste notamment sur l'importance des effets de reputation dans la determination de ces contrats et montre comment les relations de long terme peuvent conduire a l'emergence de nouveaux types de contrats bancaires combinant des caracteristiques de contrat de dette et de contrat d'action. Notre etude montre egalement que les relations de long terme peuvent conduire les banques a relacher le controle de leurs clients et impliquer, de ce fait, une inefficience dans l'allocation du credit ; cela rend alors ambigu l'effet final de telles relations sur l'equilibre macroeconomique.