Using a new, comprehensive database on bank ownership, identifying also the home country of foreign banks, for 137 countries over the period 1995-2009, this paper provides an overview of foreign bank activity and its impact of financial development and stability. We document substantial...

To what extent was the credit contraction during the global financial crisis due to more intense screening and monitoring by banks? We address this question by analyzing changes in the structure of a large number of syndicated loans to private, non-financial corporations. We find an increase in...

Using loan-level data, we find that syndicated lending by European banks with sizeable balance sheet exposures to impaired sovereign debt was negatively affected after the start of the euro area sovereign debt crisis. We also observe a reallocation away from foreign (especially US) markets. The...