We examine the informational effects of M&As by investigating whether bank mergers improve banks� ability to screen borrowers. By exploiting a dataset in which we observe a measure of a borrower�s default risk that the lenders observe only imperfectly, we find evidence of these...

The Riegle-Neal Act in the US and the Economic and Monetary Union in Europe are recent initiatives to stimulate financial integration.These initiatives allow new entrants to "poach" the incumbents' clients by offering them attractive loan offers.We show that these deregulations may be...

We evaluate the effectiveness of a partial credit guarantee program implemented in a large Italian region using unique microdata from a broad set of firms. Our results show that the policy was effective to the extent that it resulted in an improved financial condition for the beneficiary firms....