Essays in financial economics.

Summary This thesis is composed of three articles on empirical banking economics. The first article deals with the impact of lending conditions on home ownership and real estate prices. It proposes a strategy for identifying causal effects using the Prêt à Taux Zéro policy. He concludes that a relaxation of lending conditions allows households with relatively lower incomes to become homeowners but significantly increases house prices. The second paper discusses the effect of capital requirements on bank lending to non-financial corporations. It isolates the component of capital requirements that is exogenous to macroeconomic conditions using the rating system of the French banking supervisor. It shows that measures of governance quality and strategy are important contributors to capital requirements. By plotting the effect of capital requirements on institutions' capital ratios and then on credit supply, we show that increasing capital requirements reduces credit supply. The third paper analyzes the accounting for credit risk in the European interbank market between 2011 and 2015 and how it is modified by monetary policy adjustments over the period. It focuses on the risk inherent in holding assets located in the peripheral countries of the euro zone. It shows that market access and interest rates paid by borrowers respond to this holding. The nature and magnitude of this response depend on monetary policy interventions.