This paper investigates the effects of focus versus diversification on bank performance using data on Chinese banks during the 1996-2006 period. We construct a new measure, economies of diversification, and compare the results to those of the more conventional focus index, which is based on the...

This paper investigates the role of corporate boards in bank loan contracting. We find that when corporate boards are more independent, both price and non-price loan terms (e.g., interest rates, collateral, covenants and performance pricing) are more favorable and syndicated loans comprise more...

We analyse the determinants of the variation of option adjusted credit spreads (OASs) on a unique database which enlarges the traditional scope of the analysis to more disaggregated indexes (combining industry, grade and maturity levels), new variables (volumes of sales and purchases of...