Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35871 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 4351
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The evidence suggests that relational contracting and legal rules play an important role in credit markets but on the basis of the prevailing field data it is difficult to pin down their causal impact. Here we show experimentally that relational incentives are a powerful causal determinant for the existence and performance of credit markets. In fact, in the absence of legal enforcement and reputation formation opportunities the credit market breaks down almost completely while if reputation formation is possible a stable credit market emerges even in the absence of legal enforcement of debt repayment. Introducing legal enforcement of repayments causes a further significant increase in credit market trading but has only a surprisingly small impact on overall efficiency. The reason is that legal enforcement of debt repayments weakens relational incentives and exacerbates another moral hazard problem in credit markets the choice of inefficient high-risk projects.
Subjects: 
Credit markets
relationship lending
reputation formation
legal enforcement
JEL: 
C91
G21
G28
L14
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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