This study investigates the impact of bank relationships on bond spreads using data on Japanese bond-issuing firms. In doing so, it extends the existing literature, which found that bank relationships decrease bond spreads, consistent with the view that bond investors benefit from bank monitoring, but this is not the case for investment-grade bonds in the US. This study provides evidence that the influence on the yields of investment-grade bonds varies with the type of bank relationship. In this research, a main bank is defined as a bank that is not merely the top lender to a firm but also one of the ten largest shareholders, while firms that borrow money from banks but have no ties with main banks are considered to have support bank relationships. The regression results show that although main bank relationships are not systematically associated with the yields of investment-grade bonds, support bank relationships are positively associated with them. It is suggested that, even for a sample of investment-grade bonds, a specific type of bank relationship affects bond spreads and the association between them is consistent with the view that bond investors are concerned about the hold-up problem posed by banks.

这项研究使用日本债券发行公司的数据调查了银行关系对债券利差的影响。在此过程中，它扩展了现有文献，发现与银行的关系减少了债券利差，这与债券投资者从银行监管中受益的观点一致，但是在美国投资级债券却并非如此。这项研究提供的证据表明，对投资级债券收益率的影响随银行关系的类型而变化。在本研究中，主银行被定义为不仅是公司的最大贷方，而且是十个最大股东之一的银行，而从银行借钱但与主银行没有关系的公司被认为具有支持能力。银行关系。回归结果表明，尽管主要的银行关系与投资级债券的收益没有系统地关联，但支持银行的关系却与它们正相关。建议即使对于一个投资级债券样本，一种特定类型的银行关系也会影响债券利差，并且它们之间的关联也与债券投资者关注银行所构成的持仓问题的观点是一致的。