  The hypothesis that committed revolving credit lines with fixed spreads can
provide firms with interest rate insurance is a standard feature of models on
these credit facilities' interest rate structure. Nevertheless, this hypothesis
has not been tested. Its empirical examination is the main contribution of this
paper. To perform this analysis, and given the unavailability of data, we
hand-collect data on usage at the credit line level itself. The resulting
dataset enables us also to take into account characteristics of credit lines
that have been ignored by previous research. One of them is that credit lines
can have simultaneously fixed and performance-based spreads.
