Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/176003 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Texto para discussão No. 520
Publisher: 
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Departamento de Economia, Rio de Janeiro
Abstract: 
While the literature has focused on relationships as a technology for solving hidden information problems in credit markets, hidden action has been very little explored as an explanation for the existence of relational lending. In this paper, we propose a theory in which relationships are driven by the problem of contractual incompleteness in instances in which a borrower, by taking ex-ante actions, magnifies the hazards related to ex-post bargaining over returns. A relationship commits the borrower to take actions that minimize the ex-post conflict of interests resulting from contractual incompleteness. We show that a robust feature of an optimally designed lending relationship (i.e., the best Public Perfect Pure Strategy Equilibrium in a repeated lending game) is that a sufficiently patient entrepreneur, upon choosing his actions, ignores his privately observed contingencies. This commitment solves the credit rationing problem that arises in a one-shot (arm’s length) interaction, and reduces, when compared to arm’s length financing, the interest rate that a bank charges for a credit line. Although in a less acute fashion, we also show that the same features just described appear in an optimal lending relationship for the case in which the entrepreneur is impatient.
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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