This paper examines what institutional and bank-specific factors determine bank stock price synchronicity. Using data on 37 countries from 1996–2007, we find that bank stocks are more aligned with the whole market (1) during the financial crisis; (2) in countries that have more credit provided...

This study proposes an information asymmetry hypothesis to examine why bank credit ratings vary among countries even when bank financial ratios remain constant. Countries are divided among those with low and high information asymmetry. The former include high-income countries, those in North...

This paper studies the competitive and efficiency implications of financial conglomeration driven by cost-efficiency gains in monitoring credit and insurance customers. The analysis shows that conglomeration is conducive to tougher competition in the credit market and increases profit in...

In this paper we provide evidence for the effects of social norms on audit pricing by studying companies belonging to the alcohol, firearms, gambling, military, nuclear power, and tobacco industries, which are often described as “sin” companies. We hypothesize that the disparities between...

This paper evaluates bank exit regimes in selected financial centres using econometric methods. The focus is on bank exit regimes applicable to commercial banks in New York, London, Frankfurt, Helsinki and Tokyo in 1998–2002. Bank exit regimes are studied from the perspective of bank creditors...

We analyse daily lead-lag patterns in US equity and credit default swap (CDS) returns. We first document that equity returns robustly lead CDS returns. However, we find that the CDS-lag is due to common (and not firm-specific) news and arises predominantly in response to positive (instead of...

Using a sample of 161 global banks in 23 countries, we examine the applicability of structural models and bank fundamentals to price global bank credit risk. First, we find that variables predicted by structural models (leverage, volatility, and risk-free rate) are significantly associated with...

We investigate how borrowers’ corporate governance influences bank loan contracting terms in emerging markets and how this relation varies across countries with different country-level governance. We find that borrowers with stronger corporate governance obtain favorable contracting terms with...

According to recent law and finance research, legislation is essential to financial development. More effi-cient financial markets would be achieved by reforming the laws governing investor protection and cor-porate governance systems. The Companies Act has traditionally played a very important...