Priority Rule Violations and Perverse Banking Behaviors: Theoretical Analysis and Implications of the 1990s Japanese Loan Markets

This book theoretically and empirically explores why Japanese banks engaged in seemingly contradictory behaviors in the 1990s, namely, the credit crunch and evergreening, i.e., inefficient additional lending. A credit crunch occurs when banks are unwilling to finance good and efficient projects. Evergreening implies that banks reluctantly lend additional money to poorly performing and financially vulnerable firms. The authors hypothesize that these practices stemmed from violation of the ab...