This paper investigates the determinants of the use of collateral and personal guarantees in, Japan's SME loan market. We find that firms' riskiness does not have a significant effect on the, likelihood that collateral is used. We find, however, that main banks whose claims are collateralized,...

This paper examines how collateral and personal guarantees affect firms' ex-post performance employing the propensity score matching estimation approach. Based on a unique firm-level panel data set of more than 500 small-and-medium-sized borrower firms in Japan, we find the following. (1) The...