Banking reforms--that reduced interest rates--boosted college enrollment rates among able students from middle class families. We define "able" students as those with learning aptitude scores in the top two-thirds of the U.S. population. We define "middle class" as families in which both parents...

By studying intrastate branch banking reform in the United States, this paper provides evidence that financial markets substantively influence the distribution of income. From the 1970s through the 1990s, most states removed restrictions on intrastate branching, which intensified bank...

We observe less efficient capital allocation in countries whose banking systems are more thoroughly controlled by tycoons or families. The magnitude of this effect is similar to that of state control over banking. Unlike state control, tycoon or family control also correlates with slower...

We find lending by state controlled banks to be significantly more associated with monetary policy than is lending by private sector banks. At the country-level, we further find monetary policy to be significantly closely linked to aggregate loan growth and aggregate fixed capital investment...

We examine the extent to which markets enable the provision of housing finance across a wide range of countries. Housing is a major purchase requiring long-term financing, and the factors that are associated with well functioning housing finance systems are those that enable the provision of...

Which commercial bank supervisory policies ease - or intensify - the degree to which bank corruption is an obstacle to firms raising external finance? Based on new data from more than 2,500 firms across 37 countries, this paper provides the first empirical assessment of the impact of different...

Financial frictions distort the allocation of resources among productive units--all else equal, firms whose financing choices are affected by such frictions face higher borrowing costs than firms with ready access to capital markets. As a result, input choices may differ systematically across...

We partnered with a micro‐lender in Mali to randomize credit offers at the village level. Then, in no- loan control villages, we gave cash grants to randomly selected households. These grants led to higher agricultural investments and profits, thus showing that liquidity constraints bind with...

The investment decisions of small‐scale farmers in developing countries are conditioned by their financial environment. Binding credit market constraints and incomplete insurance can reduce investment in activities with high expected profits. We conducted several experiments in northern Ghana...

This paper describes our construction of the Global Financial Development Database and uses the data to compare financial systems around the world. The database provides information on financial systems in 205 economies over the period from 1960 to 2010 and includes measures of (1) size of...